Site migration SEO protects your search traffic when a website changes domain, platform or URL structure. It means listing every old URL, redirecting each one with a 301 to its closest new match, removing staging blocks at launch, and watching Search Console for weeks afterward. Google says to keep redirects generally at least 1 year.
Three kinds of migration, three levels of risk
Not every move carries the same risk. The more URLs change, the more can go wrong.
| Migration type | What changes | Change of Address tool? | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redesign on the same platform | Templates, sometimes URLs and content | No | Pages removed or rewritten without redirects |
| Platform move (for example Wix or Squarespace to WordPress) | URL patterns, templates, metadata handling | No | Every URL pattern changes at once |
| Domain change or merger | Every URL on the site | Yes, for domain or subdomain moves | Signals split across two domains |
| HTTP to HTTPS or www to non-www | Protocol or host | No | Mixed redirects and canonicals |
Google's Change of Address tool in Search Console is only for moving from one domain or subdomain to another. Google says you do not need it for HTTP to HTTPS moves or for switching between www and non-www.
Step one: a complete URL inventory
You cannot redirect a URL you do not know exists. We build the inventory from several sources, because each one misses something:
- A full crawl of the current site.
- Every URL in your XML sitemaps.
- Pages with clicks or impressions in Search Console over the last 16 months.
- Landing pages from analytics, including old campaign pages.
- URLs with external backlinks, which often point at pages nobody remembers.
- Server logs where available, which show what Googlebot actually requests.
Each URL gets a priority based on traffic, conversions and links. Google's own guidance is to start with the most important URLs, and that is how we sequence testing.
Step two: the 301 redirect map
A 301 is a permanent, server-side redirect that tells browsers and Google a page has moved. The map pairs every old URL with its closest new equivalent. The rules we follow come straight from Google's site move documentation:
- Use server-side permanent redirects (301 or 308), not JavaScript or meta refresh where avoidable.
- Redirect straight to the final destination. Google says to avoid chaining redirects and, if chains cannot be avoided, keep them ideally no more than 3 hops.
- Do not send everything to the homepage. Mass homepage redirects throw away page-level relevance.
- Update canonical tags, internal links and hreflang so they point at new URLs directly.
- Keep redirects as long as possible, generally at least 1 year, per Google.
We deliver the map as a spreadsheet your developer can load, then test every row against staging before launch.
Staging pitfalls that sink launches
Staging sites are usually blocked from search engines, which is correct until launch day. The classic failure is that the block travels with the site. We check for:
- A site-wide
noindexleft on from a WordPress setting or a plugin. - A
Disallow: /line in robots.txt copied from staging. - Canonical tags or sitemaps still pointing at the staging hostname.
- Password protection or IP restrictions left on parts of the site.
Google's guidance says to remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only needed for the migration, and to prepare the launch robots.txt in advance. We do both, and we read the live headers on launch day rather than trusting a settings screen.
Launch day checks
- Crawl the old URL list and confirm each returns one 301 to the right destination.
- Confirm new pages return 200, are indexable and carry the right canonical.
- Check robots.txt, meta robots and X-Robots-Tag headers on key templates.
- Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console.
- For domain moves, file the Change of Address request for each verified variant of the old domain.
- Confirm analytics, call tracking and form tracking fire on the new site.
- Update the website link on your Google Business Profile and major citations.
If you are a Naples business planning a launch, we also avoid scheduling it in the middle of peak season, when a dip would cost the most. Our website redesign SEO checklist walks through the same steps if you want to run them yourself.
Monitoring after the move
Google says it can take a few weeks or more for new URLs to replace old ones in results, and that visibility may fluctuate during the move. We watch Search Console page indexing and sitemap reports, crawl stats, 404 errors, server logs and organic landings by page. The expected pattern is old URLs fading while new ones climb. Anything that breaks that pattern gets a fix within days, not at the end of the month. Problems we find often trace back to earlier technical debt, which is where a technical SEO audit before the move pays for itself.
When we get involved
The best time is before design starts, when URL structure is still a choice. The next best is before launch. If the site already launched and traffic fell, we can still rebuild the redirect map from old crawls, Search Console data and backlinks. If your new site is WordPress, we also build migrations as part of SEO-ready WordPress sites.