Yes. An experienced SEO company can support a website migration, and for any migration that involves a domain change, redesign, replatforming, HTTP to HTTPS move, or a change to your URL structure, having SEO involved is important. A migration is one of the higher-risk events for organic search. It is the moment a site is most likely to lose rankings and traffic, and the loss is often avoidable. The role of an SEO company in a migration is less about adding new content and more about risk management: protecting the search visibility you already have while the site changes underneath it.

What an SEO company does during a migration

The core technical task is URL mapping. Before launch, the SEO team crawls the existing site to capture every indexed URL, then maps each one to the equivalent page on the new site. Where a destination page exists, the old URL is redirected to it with a permanent (301) redirect, which passes most of the accumulated link value to the new address. Where no equivalent page exists, the team decides whether to redirect to a close alternative or to let the old URL return a “gone” (410) response rather than redirecting it to an unrelated page. A clean, complete redirect map is the single most important deliverable in a migration, because broken or missing redirects are the most common cause of traffic loss.

Beyond redirects, an SEO company checks for signal parity between the old and new site. That means confirming that page titles, headings, meta descriptions, structured data, image alt text, and internal links carry over so search engines see the new pages as continuous with the old ones. The team also reviews the new site’s crawl settings, such as the robots file, canonical tags, and the XML sitemap, to make sure search engines can access and index the new pages.

Pre-launch and post-launch checks

Most of the protective work happens before launch. The SEO team records baseline data, including current rankings, organic traffic, and indexed page counts, so there is a clear point of comparison afterward. They review the new site on a staging environment, run a crawl of staging to catch redirect chains, dead ends, or pages accidentally blocked from indexing, and confirm that staging itself is not visible to search engines.

After launch, the work shifts to monitoring. The team verifies that redirects are firing correctly on the live site, watches for crawl errors and indexing changes in search engine tools, and tracks rankings and traffic against the baseline. For a domain change, the team also submits a change of address notification to the search engine. Some short-term fluctuation is normal while search engines recrawl and reindex the site, so an SEO company will distinguish expected movement from a real problem that needs a fix. Larger migrations, especially domain changes, can take several months to fully settle.

What to confirm before hiring for this

A migration involves your developers, your platform or hosting provider, and the SEO company at the same time, so coordination matters as much as technical skill. When you bring in an SEO company for a migration, confirm that they will be involved before launch, not only after. SEO input added after the new site is already live is far less effective, because the redirect map and crawl settings are hardest to fix once the old site is gone.

It also helps to ask how they prefer to sequence changes. A common recommendation is to avoid stacking multiple changes at once. If you are replatforming, for example, keeping the domain, design, and content stable through that move makes it much easier to isolate and diagnose any issue that appears. An SEO company that raises this kind of planning point early is treating the migration as the risk it is, rather than as routine work.

In short, an SEO company can handle the search side of a website migration, and on any migration that touches URLs, domains, or platforms, involving one is a sensible safeguard for the traffic and rankings your site already earns.

A good SEO company does not treat a site audit as a single event. It schedules audits at three distinct moments: once at the start of the engagement, on a regular recurring cycle, and again whenever a specific event makes the site’s search performance unreliable. Knowing which of these applies helps you judge whether a company’s audit plan is thorough or just a one-time checkbox.

The initial audit at the start of the engagement

The first audit should happen before any optimization work begins. An SEO company cannot recommend changes responsibly without first understanding the current state of the site, including its crawlability, indexation, technical errors, content gaps, and existing rankings. This baseline audit also gives both sides a shared reference point. When you later ask whether the work is producing results, the initial audit is the measurement you compare against.

Expect this audit early in the relationship, typically in the first few weeks. If a company proposes content or link work before auditing the site, ask why. Acting without a baseline risks spending effort on the wrong problems.

Periodic re-audits on a regular cycle

After the initial audit, audits should continue on a schedule rather than being done once and forgotten. Search engines change their ranking systems frequently, websites accumulate new pages and technical debt over time, and competitors keep adjusting their own sites. A periodic re-audit catches issues that appear gradually, such as broken links, slow pages, duplicate content, or pages that have fallen out of the index.

A common practice is a full re-audit every three to six months for most sites. The right interval depends on the size and activity of the site. A small site that rarely changes can be reviewed less often, perhaps annually, while a large site or an active e-commerce store that publishes frequently benefits from quarterly deep reviews supported by lighter monthly checks on a few key signals such as indexation and page speed. There is no single correct number, so a reasonable SEO company will tie the schedule to how often your site actually changes and explain that reasoning to you.

Event-triggered audits

Some situations call for an audit regardless of where you are in the regular cycle. These are the moments when a site’s search performance is most at risk, and a careful SEO company will treat them as automatic triggers.

A site migration is one. Moving to a new domain, a new content management system, or a new URL structure can break redirects, lose page signals, or create indexing problems. An audit should follow the migration promptly, within days of going live, so any errors are caught before rankings erode further.

A redesign is another. Even when the domain stays the same, a redesign can change page structure, internal links, and technical elements in ways that affect search visibility. An audit after launch confirms the new site is still crawlable and indexed correctly.

A noticeable traffic drop also warrants an audit. If organic traffic falls sharply and the cause is not obvious, an audit helps separate a technical problem on your site from a broader change in search results.

A major search engine algorithm update is the last common trigger. When a search provider confirms a significant ranking change, an audit helps determine whether your site was affected and what, if anything, needs to be adjusted in response.

What to expect from an SEO company

When you evaluate an SEO company, ask how it handles all three timings. It should commit to an initial audit before optimization work, propose a recurring audit schedule suited to your site, and explain which events would prompt an extra audit outside that schedule. A company that audits only once, or only when you ask, is likely to miss problems until they have already cost you visibility. Consistent, well-timed audits are how an SEO company keeps a site healthy rather than only reacting after something goes wrong.

A portfolio matters, but not in the way most buyers assume. It is useful as a starting filter, not as proof that the agency will get the same result for you. Treat it as one input among several, and learn to read it critically rather than letting an impressive set of charts close the decision.

What a portfolio is good for

The most reliable thing a portfolio shows is whether an agency has worked on problems that resemble yours. SEO work for a local service business, a national e-commerce store, and a B2B software company looks different in practice. A local campaign leans on map listings, location pages, and reviews. An e-commerce campaign deals with product page templates, faceted navigation, and large numbers of similar URLs. If your situation appears nowhere in the portfolio, the agency may still be capable, but you are paying for their learning curve.

A portfolio also reveals how an agency thinks. Read past the headline numbers and look at how each project is described. Strong entries explain what the starting problem was, what the agency actually did, and how the result tied back to the client’s business goal. Vague phrases like “implemented a comprehensive strategy” or “boosted rankings” tell you almost nothing. Specific descriptions of technical fixes, content work, or link building tell you the team understands its own craft well enough to explain it plainly.

What a portfolio cannot prove

A portfolio cannot prove the agency will succeed for you. Every site starts from a different place, in a different competitive market, with a different budget and timeline. A result that took six months in a low-competition niche may take far longer in a crowded one. Numbers without context are easy to present and hard to verify.

It also cannot prove the work is current. SEO changes as search engines change, and the rise of AI-generated answers in search results has shifted what works. A case study from several years ago may describe tactics that are now less effective or outright discouraged. Check the dates. A portfolio that stops three years ago, or that never shows dates at all, is a signal worth asking about.

A portfolio cannot prove the result lasted. A ranking that spiked and then fell back is not a success, even though it can be screenshotted as one. Sustained results over time are more meaningful than a single peak month.

Finally, a portfolio shows selected work. No agency publishes its failures or its clients who churned. This is normal, not dishonest, but it means a portfolio is a best-case sample, not an average outcome.

How to read one critically

Look first for relevance to your industry, market size, and budget range. The closer a project matches your own situation, the more weight its result deserves.

Look at recency. Favor work from the last year or two over older entries, and ask whether the approach described still reflects how search works now.

Look for baselines. A result is only meaningful if you can see where the client started, what changed, and over what period. “Traffic up 40 percent” means little without a starting figure and a timeframe.

Look for honest scope. Good case studies name the goal, the constraints, and sometimes what did not work. That kind of detail is harder to fake than a clean upward chart.

Be cautious with vanity metrics. Ranking for a keyword nobody searches, or traffic that never converts, can look impressive while delivering no business value. The portfolio entries that matter connect their results to leads, sales, or revenue.

The bottom line

A portfolio is a screening tool. Use it to confirm an agency has handled work like yours, to see how clearly they explain their thinking, and to spot anyone hiding behind vague claims. Do not use it as a guarantee. Once a portfolio passes that screen, the harder questions about process, reporting, and references belong in the conversation that follows, not in the portfolio itself.