Pre migration benchmark
A full crawl of the current site plus Search Console and analytics baselines. We need to know exactly what we're protecting, and be able to prove what changed afterwards.
SEO Migration Consultant
Relaunch the site. Keep the rankings.
Migrations are where sites lose years of SEO progress overnight. A new platform, a redesign or a domain move can all go wrong in the same quiet way: old URLs that don't redirect properly, pages that disappear, and nobody notices until the traffic graph drops.
Timing
Get SEO involved before launch, not after
The cheapest time to fix a migration problem is before the new site goes live. Once it's launched, every broken redirect and missing page is costing you traffic while it waits in a developer's queue.
I'd much rather be in the conversation when the new URL structure is being decided than get a call three weeks after launch asking why the enquiries have dried up. If you're planning a move, bring me in as early as you can.
What I handle
From benchmark to bedding in
Redirect mapping
Every old URL mapped to its closest equivalent on the new site, in a single hop. No blanket redirects to the homepage.
Staging audit
Crawling the new site before launch to catch missing pages, broken canonicals, changed titles and noindex tags left on from development.
Launch day checks
Redirects, robots.txt, sitemaps and the key templates checked on the day it goes live, while there's still time to fix things fast.
Post migration tracking
Watching indexing, rankings and traffic over the weeks after launch, and fixing anything that slips.
Internal links and sitemaps
Internal links, canonicals and the XML sitemap pointed straight at the new URLs, so Google isn't left following redirects around your own site.
Platforms
Whatever you are moving to
I work with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and custom builds, and a migration between any of them brings its own URL patterns and quirks. The redirect map and the checks are built around the two platforms you're actually moving between.
If the current site already has problems, it's worth knowing before you move them across. A technical audit ahead of the migration means you launch clean instead of carrying old mistakes over.
When should I bring in an SEO for a migration?
As early as possible, ideally before the new URL structure is agreed. The later I'm involved, the more of the work becomes fixing problems after launch rather than preventing them.
Will we lose rankings when we migrate?
Some movement is normal after a migration while Google processes the changes. The aim of the work is to keep any dip small and short. Nobody can honestly guarantee zero movement, and I'd be wary of anyone who does.
Planning a migration?
Tell me what you're moving from and to, and I'll come back within 24 hours with an honest view of where the risks are.
Book a Free Consultation