A How question

How does an SEO company handle site migrations?

4 min read Cites 3 sources

A site migration is any change that moves pages to new addresses or changes how the site is built: a new domain, a new platform, a new URL structure, or a move from HTTP to HTTPS. An SEO company handles it as a controlled sequence: record everything the old site has, map every old URL to its new home, test the new site before launch, launch with the right signals to Google, and watch closely afterwards. Google’s guide to moving a site with URL changes sets the rules for most of these steps, and the company should be working from it.

Before anything moves

The company crawls the current site and lists every URL that matters: pages, documents, images, and any address that receives search traffic or links from other sites. It records a starting point at the same time: organic traffic by page, the queries and pages that bring visitors, and how many pages are indexed. That record is what the migration will be judged against.

This is also when to decide how much changes at once. Google’s Change of Address guidance notes that “keeping the same site architecture in the new location helps to pass the signals more directly to the new site”, and that if you combine a move with a redesign of content and URL structure, “you will probably see some traffic loss.” If a redesign is planned, ask the company whether it can be done before or after the move rather than at the same time.

Mapping every old URL

Each old URL gets a permanent redirect to its closest equivalent on the new site, ideally one to one. Google is clear that permanent redirects do not waste link credit: “301 and other permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank.” A page with no real replacement should not be redirected to a loosely related page or the home page: Google’s guidance on crawl errors says that when there is “no replacement page on your site with similar content”, the page should return a 404 or 410 instead.

Redirects should point straight to the final address. Google notes that “Googlebot can follow up to 10 hops in a ‘chain’ of multiple redirects”, but advises keeping chains short, “ideally no more than 3 and fewer than 5.”

Testing the new site before launch

The new site is built in a private staging copy that search engines cannot reach. The company crawls it to confirm that redirects resolve, titles and headings carried over, structured data and internal links point to the new addresses, and the sitemap lists only the pages meant to be indexed.

Launch

On launch day the restrictions that kept staging private are removed: robots.txt blocks, noindex tags, and passwords. The company confirms the redirects are live and returning the right status codes, and submits the new sitemap. Google also warns that “after a migration, Google will temporarily crawl your new site more heavily than usual”, so the server needs capacity for it.

For a move to a new domain, the Change of Address tool in Search Console tells Google about the change. Google’s guidance says to “use this tool after you’ve moved and redirected your site”, that you must own both properties and “use the same Google account to manage both”, and that it should not be used for an HTTP to HTTPS move.

After launch

Rankings move while Google processes the change. Google’s site move guide puts it plainly: “for medium-sized websites, it can take a few weeks or more for Google to gradually start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones (and for larger sites, even longer).” The company should compare traffic and indexing against the starting record and fix broken redirects and errors as they appear, separating expected movement from real problems.

Keep the redirects in place for a long time. Google’s site move guide says to keep them “for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year.” Its Change of Address guidance, for domain moves, says to “maintain the redirects for at least 180 days”, and longer if Google Search still sends traffic to them, and it recommends keeping the old domain for at least a year so no one else can buy it.

Involving the company before launch

Make sure the company is involved before launch, not called in afterwards, since the redirect map and crawl settings are hardest to fix once the old site is gone. Ask to see the URL inventory and the redirect map, how they will test staging, what they check on launch day, and how long they will monitor afterwards.

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