Moving your website doesn’t have to mean rebuilding it from the ground up.
A site migration happens when you make major structural changes to your website, like moving to a new domain name, switching content management systems, or redesigning your layout.
A fresh start can improve performance and user experience, but it also carries risks that can cost you years of search engine optimization (SEO) work.
Without a clear map, it’s easy to overlook SEO elements during a site migration, which can lead to broken pages or traffic loss. In this guide, you’ll find a proven SEO checklist for site migration and the best practices to ensure a successful move.
Why SEO checklists for site migration are important
A site migration affects every part of your website, including metadata that visitors and search bots rely on.
Successful website migrations start with SEO planning. An SEO checklist helps preserve organic visibility by:
- Mapping redirect links
- Keeping underlying metadata intact
- Maintaining your site’s authority with search engines
Whether you’re moving a client's site or an enterprise, a handy list will help you prioritize and optimize the elements you need to compete. In a space where everyone’s striving for higher rankings, shifting your site shouldn’t count against you.
This checklist will guide you through a smooth technical SEO transfer, so your migrated site performs just as well — or even better — than the previous version.
When your site has fewer errors, visitors can keep browsing without barriers like missing subdomains or slow load times. Their smooth user experience helps maintain brand trust.
A fast website migration SEO checklist
Use this checklist while you’re moving to keep your site migration on track and SEO-friendly.
Before migration
- Benchmark current performance. Record search rankings, traffic, and key metrics so you can compare results after launch.
- Crawl and export all URLs. Create a full list of your site’s existing web pages for URL mapping and redirects.
- Perform a content and SEO audit. Identify duplicate, outdated, and underperforming pages to improve site structure and performance.
During migration
- Map 301 redirects. Direct old URLs to new ones to preserve link equity and avoid 404 errors.
- Update internal links. Replace outdated URLs in the navigation bars and menus, footers, and content so visitors don’t run into broken pages.
- Test site speed and mobile. Run performance tests to check whether pages load quickly and respond properly on different devices.
- Validate structured data. Verify that your site’s schema markup is still accurate and visible to search engines so they can correctly interpret your content.
After migration
- Check the robots.txt and XML sitemap. Ensure the robots.txt file and XML sitemap don’t block important pages and reflect your new site’s structure to help search engines crawl and index content effectively.
- Submit a new XML sitemap. Update your current XML sitemap or upload a new one to Google Search Console so search engines can index your new URLs faster.
- Monitor crawl errors and traffic. Check for 4xx and 5xx errors, track performance and traffic, and compare post-migration results with your earlier benchmarks to spot areas to improve.
5 best practices for a successful website migration
Your specific checklist will vary by migration type: Layout redesigns, URL restructures, and domain relocations all have different needs. However, the following five best practices apply to all scenarios and will help you migrate smoothly.
1. Run the site migration during low-traffic periods
Site migrations are safest when fewer people are online, and fewer conversions are at stake. A quiet window gives you space to validate redirects, templates, and analytics before search engines recrawl the full website.
Use analytics data to identify historically slow days and off-hours and determine when your site generally has the least traffic.
Then, schedule DNS changes and the redirect procedure inside that window. Include a short release (24–72 hours) around launch, so unrelated changes don’t interfere with new enhancements.
If you’re changing domains, lower your DNS time-to-live (TTL) about a day in advance so the switch transmits more quickly.
2. Keep stakeholders informed
It takes many people to migrate a website, and different inputs can cause confusion and errors. Some stakeholders may not have a direct hand in website migration efforts, but everyone needs to stay informed about progress.
A communication plan lowers the chance of mishaps, speeds up solutions, and sets guidelines to follow when issues surface. You can also create a dedicated Slack or Microsoft Teams channel for instant updates.
Make a one-page sheet with the migration’s scope, timeline, and pertinent details to send to stakeholders. Send brief status updates and notes, such as a pre-launch reminder and a 24-hour check-in.
3. Always create backups of the old site
It’s always a good idea to back up your projects. Backing up your website before migration is especially important, as it creates a fallback in case anything goes wrong.
It also serves as a reference for the quality standards you want to maintain or improve on. If something breaks, you'll need a verified copy of what a working element looks like to compare and restore.
Before launching, preserve your database, media, and CDN settings. Export a master URL list with titles and canonical tags, including redirect rules, so links continue routing visitors to the correct destination.
If you’re relocating to a new domain name, keep a read-only mirror of the legacy site available for a few weeks so you can recover specific assets as necessary.
4. Monitor post-migration performance
Most SEO impact shows up after search engine bots recrawl and the cache clears. It’s not uncommon for organic performance to drop immediately after migration. But early detection of potential problems limits traffic loss and speeds recovery.
Perform a daily quick health check:
- Do the priority pages load correctly?
- Are there new 4xx and 5xx errors?
Then, compare the most popular search queries for short- and long-tail keywords to your pre-migration ranking and performance. Note and address any dramatic changes.
Check your Core Web Vitals and mobile usability. Your new website should have a responsive design that automatically adapts to multiple screen sizes and devices without compromising performance.
Set alerts for 404 spikes or server errors on high-value sections, so you’re not solely relying on manual checks.
5. Document all assets for future reference
Treat your site migration as a guide that preserves context for future reference, especially when team members change. Having a full list of your site assets shortens website audits and makes the next migration even smoother.
Catalog the following:
- Migration type and scope
- URL structure mapping approach
- Final redirect lists with test results
- Changes to robot.txt files and the sitemap
- Any analytics updates
Most importantly, collect and compare the before-and-after across all changed features. This creates skimmable reference material and sets the baseline for similar updates in the future.
Store all these notes in a shared workspace with categorized, version-specific files for easy access.
The AEO playbook
How to optimize for AI-driven discovery
Pre-migration SEO steps
Before moving your website, it’s important to understand what you’re working with. Here’s how to prepare for a smooth transition:
Crawl your existing website
Crawl your website using tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs, so you know exactly what lives there before anything changes. These tools scan every page and note key details like:
- Status codes (whether the page is live)
- Canonical tags (which sections search engines prefer)
- Internal links
In a second crawling session, use SEO tools to see which pages attract the most search traffic. Mark these as high priority during migration. For example, if a blog subdomain with a tutorial brings in steady traffic and has several strong backlinks, protect it with a precise redirect link.
Build a complete inventory with the information from both sessions, so nothing important goes missing during the move.
Benchmark the current performance
Measuring how your website is currently performing allows you to compare critical usage data post-launch to judge the migration’s success.
Record your keyword rankings for:
- High-performing terms
- The best backlinks
- The highest-traffic landing pages from organic search
- Conversions by section
These benchmarks will help you separate common post-launch traffic fluctuations from more serious issues that might need attention.
Having a list of high-quality pages helps you act fast if something compromises your reach.
Audit the current site structure, metadata, and URLs
A site migration is a great opportunity to audit your website. Check every aspect of your site, like how intuitive navigation is and whether page hierarchy follows a logical flow. Remove duplicate or underperforming pages and combine overlapping content.
Then, make URL patterns consistent and easy to understand, like using lowercase letters and hyphens for spaces. You can also change on-page text like headings and meta descriptions, updating them for current trends to boost SEO.
Create a detailed redirect map
Redirects guide people and search engines from old URLs to the correct new links. They preserve topical authority and prevent a decrease in traffic.
Build a detailed spreadsheet mapping every existing URL. Choose the best new destination, and use a one-to-one 301 redirect so visitors end up on the right pages.
Prioritize updating high-value pages with strong organic traffic or backlinks. Old pages shouldn’t be redirected to a single location, like the blog homepage.
An accurate redirect plan helps your migrated website pick up where the old one left off, without confusing people or sacrificing SEO.
Set up a staging environment for testing
A staging environment is a private space where you can build and test your new site before it goes live. You can keep it hidden from search with a password and a “noindex” directive that tells search engines not to crawl a specific page or site.
Then, load it with real examples of your most important pages, if not your entire website, so you can test important features like links and navigation, page speed, and layout functionality.
It can be useful to create your test sample in Google Analytics, so you can confirm specific functionalities without interfering with live reports of current site performance.
Post-migration SEO tasks
After your new site is live, your priority is to help search engines quickly find the right pages and identify issues before they affect visitors. Here are several SEO site migration steps you can run in the first few weeks after launch:
Submit updated XML sitemaps to search tools
Think of sitemaps as a directory for your new site. Upload the fresh sitemap to tools like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools so crawlers know what to visit first and how to effectively scan your site’s structure.
If you changed domains or host names, use Google’s “Change of Address” tool to redirect from the old site to the new one.
Monitor site crawl errors and fix broken links
After launching your new site, check for pages that return errors or can’t be found across multiple tools (including Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools).
You can’t conduct full-site scans in Google Search Console, but you can use the URL inspection feature to check indexing statuses. If there are any issues, like missing or misspelled URLs, fix the link at its source. Or, if migration removed the page, restore it.
Recheck redirect chains and loops
Redirect routes should only go from an old page to a new one. If there are multiple stops, like old to more recent to new, or a loop of old to new to old, the site will slow down and confuse crawlers and visitors.
Test the old URL list against the new live site and remove loops by shortening any multi-step paths to a single A-to-B hop. You can also update internal links to point straight to the final destination, so people never hit a redirect at all.
Compare old vs. new search engine rankings and traffic
Watch high-traffic pages closely and compare visits and clicks for your best-performing keywords at different milestones.
For example, measure and note statistics at the one-, two-, and four-week marks. If an important page’s rankings or traffic drop off, verify the page:
- Has the correct redirect
- Loads normally in the sitemap
- Matches the corresponding search query.
Improve backlinks to properly transfer link equity
When other sites link to your site, it helps your pages rank better by providing context to search engines. External links also act as a vote of confidence for other sites, which may then link back to you, establishing more topical authority.
Make sure those links now land on the closest matching new page wherever possible. For high-value inbound links, ask the site owner to update the link to the new URL. Updating once is faster and easier than relying on a permanent redirect.
Rerun site and SEO audits for missed errors
Launch day and the week leading up to it can feel overwhelming and hectic. Things often get missed, so be sure to run a fresh SEO audit of the live site after the dust has settled. This should catch potential issues that might’ve slipped through.
Look for errors like missing or duplicate links, stray “noindex” tags, broken images, and blocked files. It’s also important to revisit the loading speed for high-traffic pages, especially on different mobile devices.
The live site can behave differently from your staging environment, so a post-migration audit will help you quickly catch and fix any issues.
Migrate your website with confidence
With a thoughtful SEO migration plan and consistent monitoring, you can launch your new website without losing your hard work on building performance, visibility, and keyword rankings.
As different teams work toward a smooth migration, a checklist will keep you on track. But you also need a competent CMS to enhance your site.
In addition to built-in SEO features, Webflow offers the flexibility to redesign and reorganize your website without any compromises. Its responsive designs mean your website works equally well across devices. And its intuitive CMS controls make it easier to manage content as your needs evolve.
Migrate without losing momentum and start rebuilding your site with Webflow.
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