Migrating your website—whether it’s a domain change, platform shift, or structural overhaul—can be rewarding, but comes with serious SEO risks. A carefully planned migration, anchored by a comprehensive checklist, helps preserve rankings, maintain traffic, and deliver long-term growth. Here’s how to do it right.
1. Pre-Migration Planning & Benchmarking
Choose the optimal migration window. Pick a low-traffic period to minimize disruptions .
Gather baseline metrics. Export data from Google Analytics and Search Console—traffic, rankings, indexed pages, backlink sources .
Audit existing pages. Identify top-performing content, outdated or duplicate pages, broken links, metadata, mobile-friendliness, schema, and page speed .
Document URLs. Crawl your site with Screaming Frog to create a list of old URLs, HTTP status, and key metadata .
2. URL Mapping & Redirect Strategy
Preserve URL structure whenever possible. This minimizes SEO impact .
Create a redirect map. List old vs new URLs, prioritize high-traffic pages, then plan 301 redirects accordingly .
Avoid redirect chains. Consolidate A→B→C into A→C to avoid performance penalties .
Canonicalization. Set canonical tags on new pages to prevent duplicate content issues .
3. Technical & Content Prep
Staging environment checks. Password‑protect the staging site, block indexing, then run full crawl tests (links, metadata, schema, mobile design, performance) .
Robots.txt & sitemap. Update robots.txt with the new sitemap path and verify no key sections are blocked .
DNS TTL adjustment. Lower TTL to ~300 seconds before launch for rapid DNS propagation .
Analytics setup. Embed Google Analytics, GSC, and Tag Manager. Create launch-day annotations and baseline dashboards .
Metadata accuracy. Ensure title tags, meta descriptions, H1s, internal links, schema, and OG tags are consistent and optimized .
4. Launch-Day Execution
Flip DNS, unpublish old site. Coordinate IT to ensure clean transition .
Activate 301 redirects. Upload redirect rules, crawl staging again to confirm accuracy .
Remove staging blocks. Switch off no‑index directives and remove “disallowed” lines in robots.txt .
Submit sitemap. Immediately upload new XML sitemap in Search Console and fetch via robots.txt .
Verify analytics. Confirm data is flowing correctly; annotate launch event in GA .
5. Post-Migration Monitoring
Daily checks. Use Search Console and ANalytics to watch for crawling issues, traffic drops, spikes in 404s, and indexation problems .
Crawl comparison. Re-crawl entire site; compare to pre-migration data to verify all pages live and redirects correct .
Rank and traffic tracking. Compare key page performance vs benchmarks. Expect minor dips; deeper issues may signal problems .
Audit architecture. Check metadata, schema, breadcrumbs, mobile-friendliness, and site speed metrics .
Fix errors quickly. Address broken links, missing metadata, redirect errors, or blocked resources swiftly .
Update external backlinks. Contact major linking sites to update links to the new URLs .
Hold old domain. Maintain ownership to preserve redirects and backlink equity .
6. Strategic Post-Launch Tuning
Re-optimize weak pages. Improve content, keywords, metadata, and UX on pages underperforming post-migration .
Monitor Core Web Vitals. Ensure site speed and experience metrics remain strong .
Regular audits. Monthly health crawls and quarterly deep reviews catch regressions and support continuous improvement.
Final Takeaway
A successful SEO migration hinges on precision, communication, and follow-through. From initial benchmarks to ongoing optimization, each stage—from staging to post-launch—demands attention to detail. With this checklist, you minimize risk, safeguard SEO assets, and support sustained growth.
Want a ready-to-use migration tracker in Sheet, Notion, or Asana? I can help you build one.
