CheckSEO
Website Migration SEO Checklist

The website migration SEO checklist: inventory everything, redirect everything, verify everything.

Most migration traffic losses are not caused by Google being slow. They are caused by URLs nobody inventoried, redirects that were never tested, and meta data that quietly did not survive the move. This checklist walks the five phases of a site migration in order - benchmark, inventory, mapping, cutover and the first 30 days - so nothing is discovered after the traffic is already gone.

SEO Focus: Migration URL inventory, 301 redirect mapping, launch-day verification Public feature guide
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Related reading: Index Coverage , Sitemap , Google Traffic Drop Analysis , Website Redesign SEO Checklist .

What Counts As a Migration

Any change to the URLs Google already knows about: a new domain, a platform or CMS change, HTTP to HTTPS, a restructure of paths or categories, merging two sites, or moving from subdomain to subfolder. Design-only changes that keep every URL identical are a redesign, not a migration - but they still break rankings when templates drop titles, headings or internal links.

Why Migrations Lose Traffic

Three causes account for most of it: URLs that were never in the inventory so they were never redirected, bulk redirects pointing everything at the homepage (Google treats those as soft 404s and drops the page-level equity), and a staging noindex tag or robots.txt disallow that shipped to production on launch day.

How Long Recovery Takes

A clean migration usually shows a dip for two to four weeks while Google recrawls and reassigns signals, then recovers. If traffic is still down after six to eight weeks, it is almost never patience that is missing - it is an unredirected URL set, a lost internal link structure, or content that changed more than the URLs did.

The Complete Website Migration SEO Checklist

Work through the phases in order. Do not start Phase 4 until Phases 1 to 3 are signed off - launch day is the worst possible time to discover a missing URL list.

Phase 1 - Benchmark Before You Touch Anything

You cannot prove a migration succeeded without a before picture. Capture all of this while the old site is still live.

  1. Export 16 months of Search Console data. Queries, pages, clicks, impressions and average position. Once the property changes, this history gets much harder to reach.
  2. Record your top 100 landing pages by organic traffic. These are the URLs whose redirects you will verify one by one, by hand, on launch day.
  3. Save current rankings for your priority keywords. Without a baseline, every post-launch fluctuation turns into an argument instead of a measurement.
  4. Benchmark Core Web Vitals and page speed. New platforms often ship heavier templates. Knowing the old numbers tells you whether a slowdown is real.
  5. Take a full backup of the existing site and database. Rollback is a legitimate migration strategy. It only works if the backup exists and has been restore-tested.

Phase 2 - Build the Complete URL Inventory

The pages you fail to inventory are exactly the pages you will lose. Combine every source - no single one is complete.

  1. Crawl the live site end to end. This finds what is linked. It will not find orphans, so it is only your first source.
  2. Add every URL from your XML sitemaps. Sitemaps often contain pages that dropped out of the internal link structure years ago.
  3. Add Search Console Pages data and any analytics landing-page export. This is how you find orphan pages that still earn traffic and links - the highest-value URLs to miss.
  4. Add server log URLs that returned 200 in the last 90 days. Logs reveal URLs that real crawlers and users still request but nothing links to.
  5. Include your existing 301s and the URLs that point into them. Old redirects must be re-pointed to the new destination or you create redirect chains on day one.
  6. Deduplicate into one master list, then mark each URL keep, redirect or retire. Every URL needs an explicit decision. Unmarked rows are how pages get silently dropped.

Phase 3 - Map Every URL to Its 301 Destination

One old URL, one 301, one relevant new URL. This is the phase that actually preserves rankings.

  1. Map each old URL to its closest new equivalent - never in bulk to the homepage. Irrelevant bulk redirects are treated as soft 404s, so the page-level authority is discarded rather than passed on.
  2. Use 301 permanent redirects, not 302, 307 or meta refresh. A 302 tells Google the old URL is coming back, so it keeps indexing the old URL and delays consolidation.
  3. Redirect in a single hop wherever possible. Chains dilute signals and slow crawling. Re-point legacy redirects at the final destination instead of stacking new ones.
  4. Decide honestly what to retire, and return 410 for it. Content with no equivalent should not be redirected somewhere irrelevant. A clean 410 removes it far faster than a 404.
  5. Carry over titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonical tags and image ALT text. Migrations that change the URLs and the on-page signals at the same time make a ranking drop impossible to diagnose.
  6. Rebuild internal links to point at final URLs, not through redirects. Internal links are a ranking signal you fully control. Leaving them pointing at redirects wastes it.
  7. Test the full redirect map on staging before launch. Checking status codes after cutover means finding your mistakes in production, in front of Googlebot.

Phase 4 - Launch Day Cutover

A short, ordered sequence. Run it deliberately - most catastrophic migration losses happen in this hour.

  1. Remove staging noindex tags and the robots.txt Disallow: / rule first. This single line shipping to production is the most common cause of a total post-migration collapse.
  2. Confirm HTTPS, the canonical hostname, and www or non-www consolidation. Every duplicate hostname variant should 301 to one canonical version, preserving path and query string.
  3. Spot-check your top 100 URLs return a single 301 to a live 200 page. Verify the pages that actually earn traffic by hand. Sampling at random is not the same test.
  4. Publish and submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console. Fresh sitemaps materially speed up how quickly Google discovers and processes the new URL set.
  5. Temporarily keep a sitemap of the old URLs submitted too. It pushes Google to recrawl old URLs and see the 301s sooner, which speeds up signal transfer.
  6. For a domain change, submit the Search Console Change of Address. It tells Google the move is intentional and site-wide. It supplements the redirects, it does not replace them.
  7. Verify analytics, tag manager and Search Console on the new property. Losing measurement during the one period you most need it turns diagnosis into guesswork.

Phase 5 - The First 30 Days

Migrations are monitored, not launched and forgotten. Check these weekly until the trend line is flat again.

  1. Watch Search Console Pages for new Not Found and Redirect Error entries. This is Google telling you exactly which URLs your inventory missed. Fix them the same week.
  2. Track indexed page counts on both properties. Old URLs should fall as new URLs rise. If old URLs stay indexed, the redirects are not being seen.
  3. Recheck server logs for crawler 404s and 5xx responses. Logs surface crawl problems days before they show up in Search Console reports.
  4. Compare rankings and landing pages against the Phase 1 benchmark. Page-level comparison shows whether a drop is site-wide or isolated to one unredirected section.
  5. Contact high-value external sites and ask them to update their links. Redirects pass most equity, but a direct link to the live URL is always stronger and never expires.
  6. Keep the redirects in place for at least a year - ideally permanently. External links and old bookmarks keep sending value only while the redirect still answers.

How To Use This In CheckSEO

Step 1

Start with the SEO Search tool to review the website quickly and understand the initial score.

Related CheckSEO Pages

These internal links use targeted anchor text so visitors and search engines can move naturally across the main website SEO review topics.

IC Index Coverage

Index Coverage shows whether website URLs are eligible, excluded, risky, or in need of review based on CheckSEO signals.

 SM Sitemap

Sitemap review explains how website URLs are discovered, validated, and prepared for deeper SEO analysis.

 TD Google Traffic Drop Analysis

Traffic dropped? Rule out the technical causes first.

 RD Website Redesign SEO Checklist

A redesign should change how the site looks - not what Google already understands about it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a website migration in SEO?

Any change that alters the URLs Google has already indexed - a new domain, a platform or CMS change, HTTP to HTTPS, a URL restructure, or merging sites. If the addresses change, it is a migration and it needs a redirect map.

How much traffic is normal to lose in a migration?

A well-executed migration typically dips for two to four weeks and then recovers. Permanent losses come from missed redirects, bulk redirects to the homepage, lost meta data, or unindexable sections - all of which this checklist verifies.

How long should 301 redirects stay in place?

At least one year, and ideally forever. Google needs repeated crawls to transfer signals, and external links pointing at the old URLs keep their value only while the redirect still resolves.

Should I use 301 or 302 redirects for a site migration?

Always 301. A 302 signals a temporary move, so Google keeps the old URL indexed and delays consolidating signals onto the new one.

Do I need the Change of Address tool in Search Console?

Yes for a domain change - it confirms the move is intentional and site-wide. It does not apply to platform, HTTPS or URL-structure changes on the same domain, and it never replaces the redirects themselves.

Can I redirect all old URLs to the new homepage?

No. Google treats irrelevant bulk redirects as soft 404s and discards the page-level authority. Each URL needs its closest relevant equivalent, or an honest 410 if nothing matches.

Is a website redesign the same as a migration?

Not if every URL stays identical - that is a redesign. It still carries risk, because new templates often drop titles, headings, structured data or internal links. Check the redesign checklist for that case.

How do I move from HTTP to HTTPS without losing rankings?

Treat it as a full migration: 301 every HTTP URL to its HTTPS equivalent, update internal links and canonical tags to HTTPS, add the HTTPS property in Search Console, and resubmit the sitemap.

Who Builds This & How It Works

  • ● Built by practitioners. CheckSEO is developed and maintained by Sunlight IT Web Solutions Pvt Ltd, working in SEO and web development since 2013 — the checks come from real client work, not theory.
  • ● Grounded in Google’s guidance. Every check maps to published Google Search documentation and established technical-SEO practice, and each finding explains why it matters — no black-box scores.
  • ● Independently verifiable & safe. You can confirm every result with Google’s own free tools (see Trust & Security), and CheckSEO never changes anything on your website.
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