Site Migration & Relaunch SEO

We handle every type of website migration that carries SEO risk. Platform migrations involve moving from one CMS to another, such as migrating from WordPress to Shopify, from Joomla to Webflow, or from a custom CMS to a commercial platform. These migrations risk broken URLs, lost metadata, changed page structures, and differences in how the new platform handles SEO elements. Domain changes involve moving from one domain to another, such as rebranding, acquiring a better domain, or consolidating multiple domains. Domain changes require careful 301 redirect management and search engine notification of the change of address. Protocol migrations involve moving from HTTP to HTTPS, which carries specific risks around mixed content, redirect chains, and security certificate configuration.

Information architecture changes involve restructuring your site's navigation, URL patterns, or content hierarchy without changing platforms or domains. These are often the most insidious migrations because they seem low-risk but can create massive numbers of broken internal links and orphaned pages if not managed carefully. Design relaunches involve significant visual and functional changes without platform or URL changes. While design-only relaunches carry lower SEO risk, they can still affect user behaviour signals that influence rankings, and they can break functionality that previously supported SEO performance. E-commerce migrations are the highest-risk category because they combine platform changes with product data migration, variant handling, and inventory management, all of which can create catastrophic SEO issues if any element is mishandled.

Every migration engagement follows a structured methodology with four phases: pre-migration planning, pre-launch preparation, launch execution, and post-launch monitoring. The pre-migration planning phase begins with a comprehensive audit of your current site's SEO health. We document every indexed URL, every ranking page, every backlink, every piece of structured data, and every technical configuration detail. We also identify the pages and content that drive the majority of your organic traffic and revenue, because protecting these pages is the highest priority. Based on this audit, we create a detailed migration plan that specifies exactly what needs to happen at every stage.

The pre-launch preparation phase involves building the new site's SEO foundation. We map every URL from the old site to its corresponding new URL, creating a complete 301 redirect map that ensures every existing link, bookmark, and search engine reference continues to work after the migration. We implement the new site's SEO elements including title tags, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, structured data, and canonical tags. We configure the new platform's SEO settings, set up analytics and tracking, and verify that the staging environment is fully optimized before launch. We also develop a testing checklist that covers every SEO-critical element.

The launch execution phase is where the migration goes live. We execute the 301 redirect implementation, update DNS if the domain is changing, submit the new sitemap to Google Search Console, request re-crawling of critical pages, and monitor the transition in real time. We have a rollback plan ready in case unexpected issues emerge, and we stay on standby throughout the launch window to address problems as they arise. We also communicate with your team and stakeholders throughout the launch so everyone knows the status.

The post-launch monitoring phase extends for at least thirty days after launch. We monitor search engine crawling behaviour, indexation rates, ranking movements, organic traffic levels, and conversion metrics, comparing them against the pre-migration baseline. We identify and fix any issues that emerge, such as redirect chains, broken links, missing metadata, or crawl errors. We also monitor your backlink profile to ensure that external links are passing authority to the correct new URLs. At the end of the monitoring period, we provide a comprehensive migration report that documents the outcome, including any traffic or ranking changes and the steps taken to address them.

The most common migration mistake is inadequate redirect planning. Every URL that existed on the old site must redirect to a relevant page on the new site. Redirects to the homepage, redirect chains that pass through multiple URLs before reaching the destination, redirect loops, and missing redirects for pages that have external backlinks are all common failures that destroy SEO equity. We prevent these by building and testing every redirect before launch, using automated tools to verify completeness and correctness.

Another common mistake is failing to update internal links. When you migrate to a new platform, the internal links within your content often break because the URLs have changed. We use automated link checkers to identify every broken internal link after migration and fix them systematically. We also check external links that you control, such as social media profiles, directory listings, and email signatures, to ensure they point to the correct new URLs.

Metadata loss during migration is another frequent problem. Title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and structured data can be lost or corrupted during the migration process, particularly when moving between different CMS platforms that handle these elements differently. Our pre-launch checklist includes a comprehensive metadata verification step that catches these issues before they affect search results.

We have seen businesses lose seventy percent of their organic traffic overnight due to a botched migration. We have seen companies take six months or longer to recover their pre-migration rankings, and some never fully recover because competitors capitalized on the disruption. The financial impact can be enormous: lost leads, lost sales, lost brand visibility, and the cost of emergency recovery efforts. Investing in proper migration SEO protection is not an expense; it is insurance against a potentially catastrophic loss.