# Website migration without losing SEO > A website migration SEO plan in three stages: what to inventory before launch, how to build the redirect map, and what to watch in the first 30 days. Canonical page: https://kyvrel.com/blog/website-migration-seo Published: 2025-08-26 · 6 min read · Kyvrel Good website migration SEO is mostly preparation. Before launch, you list every URL that earns traffic or links, map each one to its new address with a permanent redirect, and keep the content and technical signals that made it rank. After launch, you watch crawl errors and rankings for at least a month. Sites usually lose traffic when one of these steps is skipped. This guide covers redesigns, platform changes and domain moves. The details differ, but the method is the same. ## Why do rankings drop after a website migration? Search engines rank URLs, not brands. When a URL changes, the new one starts without history. Redirects pass the old signals across, but only if they exist, point to the right place and stay in place. Traffic drops usually come from a few familiar causes: - **Missing redirects.** Old URLs return 404, so their links and rankings are lost. - **Redirects to the wrong page.** Everything points to the homepage, which search engines often treat like a 404. - **Content removed or thinned out.** A detailed service page becomes three short paragraphs and a contact form. - **Technical regressions.** Staging `noindex` tags left on, canonical tags pointing at the old domain, broken hreflang, slower pages. - **Internal links not updated.** The site links to its own old URLs and sends every visitor through a redirect. Some movement in the first weeks is normal while search engines recrawl the site. A long, steep decline is not. It almost always traces back to one of the causes above. ## Which kind of migration are you doing? Risk depends on how much changes at once. - **Design-only refresh.** Same URLs, same content, new look. Lowest risk. Focus on content parity and performance. - **Platform change.** For example, moving from a site builder to a custom stack. URLs often change format, and templates generate different markup. Our guide to [Webflow to Next.js migration](https://kyvrel.com/blog/webflow-to-nextjs-migration) covers one common case. - **URL restructure.** New folders, new slugs, merged or split pages. Medium to high risk, because every changed URL needs a redirect. - **Domain change.** A rebrand or a move from a country domain to `.com`. Highest risk. Every URL changes, and search engines must learn the new domain. If you can, avoid changing everything at once. Moving platform and domain in the same week makes problems harder to diagnose. ## The website migration SEO checklist before launch Most of the work happens before anyone switches DNS. ![Flow from crawling the old site to building the redirect map, testing on staging and launching](https://kyvrel.com/blog/inline/website-migration-seo-1.png) ### 1. Crawl and inventory the old site Build a full list of URLs from several sources, because no single source has everything: - A crawl of the live site with a desktop crawler. - The XML sitemaps. - Search Console's pages and performance reports. - Analytics landing pages for the last 12 months. - Your backlink tool's list of linked pages. Merge them into one spreadsheet. Keep it. You will use it again after launch. ### 2. Record the baseline Export clicks, impressions and average position per page from Search Console. Save the top queries. Note organic sessions and conversions per landing page in analytics. Without a baseline, you cannot tell a normal dip from a real loss. ### 3. Build the redirect map Every old URL that has traffic, links or a purpose gets a row with its new destination. ``` old_url,new_url,status /services/branding/,/services/brand-identity,301 /blog/2023/05/site-speed-tips/,/blog/site-speed-tips,301 /about-us/,/about,301 /old-promo-2022/,/offers,301 ``` Rules that keep the map clean: - **One hop.** Old URL to final URL, with no chains through intermediate addresses. - **Closest match.** Redirect to the page that answers the same need, not to the homepage. - **Permanent status.** Use 301 or 308 for permanent moves. Temporary redirects send the wrong signal. - **Decide on true removals.** If a page has no equivalent and no value, let it return 404 or 410 on purpose, not by accident. ### 4. Check content parity Compare each important old page with its new version. Titles, headings, body copy, internal links, images and FAQs should carry over unless you are improving them on purpose. A redesign is a good moment to rewrite weak pages, but do not cut strong ones to fit a template. ### 5. Check technical parity on staging Before launch, test the new site on staging against this list: - Title tags and meta descriptions migrated or improved. - Canonical tags point at the new URLs on the production domain. - Hreflang pairs are complete and reciprocal on multilingual sites. - Structured data is present and valid. - New XML sitemap lists only final, indexable URLs. - Robots rules allow crawling of the production site. - Page speed is the same or better. Check Core Web Vitals on key templates. Block staging from search engines with authentication, not just `noindex`. Then you cannot forget to remove the tag at launch. ## Launch day Keep launch day boring. Launch early in the week, not before a holiday or a big campaign. 1. Deploy the redirects together with the new site, not a day later. 2. Test a sample of old URLs, including the top 50 by traffic, for a single 301 to the right page. 3. Confirm the production site has no `noindex` and robots.txt allows crawling. 4. Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console. 5. For a domain change, verify both domains and use the Change of Address tool. 6. Update internal links, so the new site links to new URLs directly. Google's own guide to [site moves with URL changes](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes) covers these steps in more detail and is worth reading in full. ## The first 30 days after launch ![Timeline of the 30 days after launch, with daily checks in week one and weekly checks after](https://kyvrel.com/blog/inline/website-migration-seo-2.png) - **Daily in week one.** Check Search Console for 404s and server errors. Crawl the site again. Fix missing redirects as they appear. - **Weekly after that.** Compare clicks and impressions per page with your baseline. Look at pages, not just totals, because one lost page can hide inside overall growth. - **Watch conversions.** Forms, demo requests and checkouts can break without affecting rankings at all. - **Keep the redirects.** Google recommends keeping them for at least a year, and longer is safer. Old links on other sites will keep sending visitors for years. If a key page loses traffic, check its redirect, its content and its indexing status, in that order. Most problems are visible within the first two weeks. ## Mistakes that cost the most traffic - Redirecting every old URL to the homepage. - Launching with the staging `noindex` still on. - Deleting the old sitemap and redirect list after launch, so nobody can check later. - Changing domain, platform and URL structure in one release. - Running the migration without anyone owning SEO on launch day. Before you start a redesign, it also helps to agree what must not change. Our [website redesign checklist](https://kyvrel.com/blog/website-redesign-checklist) has a section on that. ## Next step: migrate with a plan, not a hope Every [website redesign project](https://kyvrel.com/products/website-redesign) at Kyvrel includes SEO migration: URL inventory, redirect map, staging checks and Search Console monitoring after launch. Redesigns start at $9,500 for 8 page templates, with a typical timeline of 5-6 weeks. If you only need the migration work on a new build, it is a $1,500 add-on. See every product, add-on and what each includes on our [pricing page](https://kyvrel.com/pricing).