“Website migration” sounds like a technical job for someone else to worry about. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the easiest ways for a business to lose search traffic, break its email or wipe out years of work in an afternoon. The good news is that almost every migration disaster is preventable with planning.
You don’t need to do the technical work yourself. But you do need to know what should be happening, so you can ask the right questions and check it’s been done.
This guide explains the different types of website migration, what can go wrong, and how to plan each stage.
Know what kind of website migration you’re doing
The word covers several different projects, and each carries different risks.
- Changing hosting: the same site moves to a new server. Lowest risk if done carefully.
- Changing platform: for example, moving from Wix or Squarespace to WordPress, or from one e-commerce platform to another. Page addresses, content and functionality can all change.
- Changing domain: moving from one web address to another, often during a rebrand. This carries significant search risk.
- Restructuring: reorganising pages and addresses, often as part of a redesign.
Many projects combine several of these. A rebrand with a new website on a new platform at a new domain is four migrations at once. The more you change at the same time, the harder it is to work out what caused any problems. If you can stagger changes, do.
Take stock of what you have
Before any website migration starts, record exactly what exists now. This is the step that protects you.
- Every URL on the site. Use a crawling tool, your sitemap and your analytics to build a complete list, including blog posts, PDFs and images that get traffic.
- Traffic and rankings. Export data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console showing which pages bring visitors, what searches they come from and how many enquiries or sales they generate.
- Backlinks. Note which pages other websites link to. Those links carry value you don’t want to lose.
- Functionality. Forms, bookings, payments, logins, integrations, tracking codes, cookie banners. List everything the site does.
- Access details. Logins for your domain registrar, current hosting, DNS, website admin, analytics and Search Console. Find these now, not on launch day.
Take a full backup of the current site, including files and database, and store it somewhere separate from both old and new hosting.
Build a redirect map
If any page addresses are changing, you need a redirect map. It’s a simple spreadsheet with two columns: old URL and new URL. Every old page that has value should point to the most relevant new page using a permanent redirect, known as a 301 redirect.
Some rules of thumb:
- Redirect to the closest equivalent page, not everything to the homepage.
- Avoid chains, where one redirect points to another that points to another.
- Pages that are being removed with no equivalent can redirect to the most relevant section page, or be allowed to return a proper “not found” response if they had no value.
- Keep the redirects in place for the long term. Removing them after a few months throws away the benefit.
Lost redirects are the single most common reason a business drops out of Google after launching a new site. The redirect map is not optional.
Don’t forget email
Email and websites often share a domain, and sometimes a hosting account. When DNS settings change, email can stop working if the mail records aren’t carried across correctly. Before any DNS changes, record all existing DNS records, particularly the ones that control email and any verification records for other services. Check with whoever set up your email exactly where it’s hosted.
If you’ve set up email authentication records such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC, make sure they’re kept, and updated if the website’s new host will send emails such as form notifications.
Plan the launch itself
Choose a quiet time for your business to go live. Avoid your busiest season, a big campaign or a Friday afternoon when nobody will be around to fix things.
A typical launch plan includes:
- A content freeze on the old site a short time before launch, so nothing gets lost in the move.
- Building and testing the new site on a staging address that search engines can’t index.
- Lowering DNS cache times in advance, if changing hosting, so the switch takes effect faster.
- A final backup immediately before switching.
- Switching DNS or moving the site, then installing and checking the SSL certificate.
- Removing any “don’t index” setting that was used on the staging site. It’s surprisingly common for this to be forgotten.
- Activating redirects and testing a sample immediately.
Test everything after launch
On launch day, work through a test list: submit every form, make a test purchase or booking, check emails arrive, check tracking and analytics are recording, click through the main navigation on desktop and mobile, and test a batch of old URLs to confirm redirects work.
In Google Search Console, submit your new XML sitemap. If you’ve changed domain, Search Console has a change of address tool for this situation, and you should verify both the old and new domains.
Monitor for the following weeks
Some movement in search traffic after a website migration is normal, especially with big structural or domain changes. What you’re watching for is anything unusual or persistent. For several weeks, check:
- Crawl errors and “not found” pages reported in Search Console.
- Traffic and enquiries compared with your pre-migration records.
- Rankings for your most important search terms.
- Site speed and uptime on the new hosting.
Fix missing redirects as you find them. Keep the old hosting account active for a short while after launch, just in case you need to retrieve something.
Website migration checklist
- We know which type or types of migration we’re doing.
- A full list of current URLs is recorded.
- Traffic, rankings and conversion data are exported as a baseline.
- Pages with backlinks are identified.
- All site functionality is listed for testing.
- Logins for domain, DNS, hosting, analytics and Search Console are confirmed.
- A full backup is stored separately.
- A redirect map covers every valuable old URL.
- All DNS records, especially email records, are documented.
- Launch is scheduled for a quiet time with people available.
- Staging “no index” settings are removed at launch.
- Forms, payments, emails, tracking and redirects are tested on launch day.
- The new sitemap is submitted and, for domain changes, the change of address tool is used.
- Monitoring is scheduled for several weeks after launch.
Getting it done safely
If you’d rather not risk it, our website migration service handles the planning, redirect mapping, launch and monitoring for you. If the move involves a new hosting setup, our website hosting team can make sure the new home is ready before anything moves.
