Website Migration SEO Checklist: How to Redesign or Move a Site Without Losing Traffic

A new design, a new domain, or a move from one platform to another feels like a fresh start. For search engines, it can feel like your old site vanished overnight. I’ve seen businesses lose half their organic traffic after a “simple” redesign because nobody planned the redirects.

The good news: Google publishes clear guidance on site moves, and most losses are avoidable. In this guide, I’ll give you the checklist I use before, during, and after a migration.

If you’re not yet comfortable with Search Console, read my Google Search Console tutorial first. You’ll need it throughout.

Which kind of migration are you doing?

The risk depends on what changes:

The more you change at once, the harder it is to diagnose problems. If you can, avoid changing domain, URLs, design, and content all on the same day.

Phase 1: Before the migration

1. Benchmark everything

Export from Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4:

• Top pages by clicks and impressions (last 12 months)
• Top queries
• Pages with backlinks (from your SEO tool of choice)
• Conversions by landing page
• Current indexed page count

These numbers are your baseline. Without them, you can’t prove whether the migration worked.

2. Crawl the old site

Use a crawler such as Screaming Frog to list every URL: pages, posts, categories, images, PDFs, and other files. Combine it with URLs from your sitemaps, analytics, and server logs so nothing is missed.

3. Build a URL redirect map

This is the most important document in the whole project. In a spreadsheet, list each old URL and its new destination:

• Map each page to its closest equivalent on the new site, not to the homepage.
• For content you’re removing with no equivalent, let it return 404 or 410.
• Don’t forget images and downloadable files that earn traffic or links.

4. Prepare the new site

• Keep (or improve) titles, meta descriptions, headings, and body content on important pages. See my on-page SEO checklist.
• Give every page a self-referencing canonical tag.
• Update internal links to point straight to the new URLs.
• Update hreflang tags if you have multiple languages or countries.
• Check that structured data carries over (my schema markup guide explains how to test it).
• Test speed and mobile usability on staging. My Core Web Vitals guide helps.

5. Protect the staging site

Block your staging site from search engines with password protection, so it doesn’t get indexed before launch. Then remember to remove that block on launch day.

6. Back up

Take a full backup of the old site (files and database) before you touch anything. My WordPress backup guide covers how.

Phase 2: Launch day

7. Turn on server-side 301 redirects

Google recommends permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308) from each old URL to its new URL.

• Avoid redirect chains. Redirect old URLs straight to the final destination.
• Don’t redirect everything to the homepage. Google may treat that as a soft 404.
• Use JavaScript or meta refresh redirects only as a last resort.

8. Check robots.txt and noindex

The most common launch-day disaster is a leftover Disallow: / in robots.txt or a sitewide noindex tag from staging. Check both immediately. In WordPress, make sure Settings > Reading > Discourage search engines is unticked.

9. Submit the new sitemap

Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console. Google says you can keep the old sitemap submitted for a while too, which helps you watch indexing move from old to new URLs.

10. Use the Change of Address tool (domain moves only)

If you’re moving to a new domain or subdomain, use Search Console’s Change of Address tool:

• You must verify both old and new domain properties with the same Google account.
• Set up 301 redirects from the old homepage (and ideally all old pages) before you submit.
• Submit it for each verified variant of the old site (www, non-www, and so on).

You don’t need it for HTTP to HTTPS moves, www changes, or URL changes within the same domain. After a submission, Google prioritises crawling the new site for 180 days.

11. Test redirects

Run your old URL list through a crawler or redirect checker. Every old URL should return a single 301 to the correct page. Spot-check important pages with Search Console’s URL Inspection tool.

Phase 3: After the migration

12. Update external links and profiles

Update the links you control: social profiles, Google Business Profile, directories, email signatures, and ad campaigns. Ask partners who link to your most important pages to update their links.

13. Monitor closely for 4–8 weeks

Check weekly:

• Search Console Pages report (indexing errors, 404s, redirects)
• Clicks and impressions compared with your baseline
• Crawl errors in server logs
• Conversions in analytics

Google says that for a medium-sized site, it can take a few weeks for most new URLs to replace old ones in search, and larger sites take longer. Some fluctuation is normal. A steep, sustained drop usually means something is broken: missing redirects, blocked pages, or lost content.

14. Keep redirects (and the old domain) for a long time

Google recommends keeping redirects for at least one year, and longer if possible. If you changed domain, keep renewing the old one, both for the redirects and so nobody else can buy it and misuse your old traffic.

Common migration mistakes

• No redirect map, or redirecting everything to the homepage.
• Leaving the staging noindex or robots.txt block in place.
• Removing content that was ranking without replacement.
• Changing domain, URLs, design, and content all at once.
• Forgetting images, PDFs and old campaign URLs.
• Letting the old domain expire.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides on WebTechHelp

• Technical SEO audit checklist
• Google Search Console tutorial
• WordPress SEO guide
• How to back up a WordPress site
• How to choose web hosting

Sources

• Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes
• Google Search Console Help: Change of Address tool
• Google Search Central: Redirects and Google Search