Migration in connection with a website redesign or major structural changes will most often occur several times during the life of a company/website. An incorrect migration without thorough preparation can have major consequences for search engine rankings and traffic.
The guide below describes our best practices for a successful SEO migration before, during, and after the migration.
Migration in connection with a website redesign or major structural changes will most often occur several times during the life of a company/website. An incorrect migration without thorough preparation can have major consequences for search engine rankings and traffic.
The guide below describes our best practices for a successful SEO migration before, during, and after the migration.
Before migration
Everything described below must be done before the actual website migration takes place. This should be done when the website is fully developed and visually ready for launch.
No-index or password protection
Technically, it is important that you either set No-index or password protection on your website while it is being designed. It is important that Google and the other search engines cannot access the new page while content from the current page is being implemented.
In the worst case, this error could create massive duplicate content and hurt the page’s rankings in search engines.
Content mapping (redirect file)
Mapping the current pages against the new ones is the first thing that should be done in connection with the migration. Partly because you will use it in large parts of the entire preparatory work in connection with the launch of the new website.
Mapping the content/pages means that you need to map the following:
- What URLs are on the current page?
- Which URLs are on the new page
- Should a redirect be created?
- Should the new page be created?
We recommend that you put it all into one Excel document.
You can use Screaming Frog© or another tool to get a complete list of all your current URLs as well as the new website’s URLs.
When you are done with the above, you will have a complete document that you can use to create your redirect file and create the pages that are missing on the new version (if it is critical for the number of visits).
Please read our bonus tips for Excel.
Transfer of meta titles and descriptions
Once you have mapped all subpages and have 100% control over this, you need to ensure that you transfer all meta titles and meta descriptions.
You can use the same Excel document in a new tab. Again, feel free to use Screaming Frog© or another tool to extract this data.
Be 100% sure that all meta titles and descriptions match, or update the new ones to an optimized and better version.
For very large websites, we recommend setting up a rule in Excel that shows duplicates so that you can quickly and easily get an overview of the unique values that you need to optimize.
Please read our bonus tips for Excel.
Transfer of texts
After you have your complete document, see the section on content mapping, you should review all the pages to ensure that the text from the old version is the same or better on the new version. It must not happen that there are pages without the text that already ranks in Google’s search engines before the launch of the new website.
If you have a very large site, we recommend that you extract 20-30% of the pages that create the most value and review these.
However, it is always best to review all pages.
We also recommend that you look at Reviewing Internal Links in connection with this point.
H1 mapping
If you have good rankings in search engines that you would like to maintain, we recommend that you create an H1 mapping.
The H1 mapping will ensure that the current and new pages have the same text in the heading (H1).
We recommend that you use the same Excel document for both content mapping and meta data mapping (preferably in a new tab).
Now review all the pages and make sure that the H1 heading on the current page and new page match 1:1 or optimize the new page further for the search terms you would like to rank for.
Please read our bonus tips for Excel.
Review internal links
If you have worked with internal link building (internal link structure) on your current site, it is important that you transfer this to the new site. Our clear recommendation is to do this in connection with the implementation of the texts, otherwise you will have to go through them twice.
Tracking setup
One of the most important things when migrating to a new website is to make sure your tracking is working properly. We recommend that you test this before launching the new website, as otherwise you could lose valuable data.
Some of the most common tags to implement are the following:
- Google Tag Manager (recommended)
- Facebook Pixel (incl. conversions/events)
- Google Analytics (incl. conversions/events)
- E-commerce tracking (for E-commerce)
- LinkedIn Insight Tag
- Call tracking (typically B2B)
Optimize speed
When you are getting ready for the launch, you should do a general SEO review of the new site, including speed optimization to ensure that the site loads quickly.
As a general rule, you should ensure that your website loads as quickly as your current version, but preferably faster.
To test this, we recommend:
- PageSpeed Insights
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom Tools
The migration itself
Once you have the above in place, you are ready to migrate your website without risking losing your most important search engine rankings. There are of course no guarantees, but with the above preparation you have done what you can.
Below are the things you should do on launch day itself.
Get control of Noindex in Robots.txt
When you launch, it is important that you ensure that search engines can read your website and index the changes in the search engines.
It is therefore important that you remove No-index from the test page and ensure that you have not excluded the search engines through Robot-txt.
An incorrect setup in Robots.txt will typically look like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
XML sitemap
If your website has been structurally changed in any way, it is important that you create a new XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console (and your Robots.txt file). This way, Google can now easily crawl and index your new structure.
Please note that you do not need to have an XML sitemap. If you had one on the old site, you should update it.
Redirect file
The most important point of all is to make sure that you redirect all pages to the new version. According to the guide above, you can filter by redirect in your Excel document and get all the pages you need.
These should have a 301 redirect from the old to the new page. You can either do this in your .htacess file or directly in your CMS system through a plugin.
After the migration
Once your migration is complete, it is important that you check to make sure everything is as it should be. You can follow the points below:
Check for errors (404 pages)
For good measure, you should run your website through Screaming Frog to ensure that there are no internal links that point to the old version.
Here you can specifically look for 404 error pages that you may have overlooked during the migration preparation.
Follow up on tracking
You should check in the following hours/days (depending on how much volume your website has) that your tracking is working correctly. Follow Google Analytics and your other tracking tools and check for data consistency.
Follow your locations
The most important thing after the migration is to keep an eye on your rankings in Google. Monitor closely over the coming days to ensure that you are roughly maintaining your rankings, and take quick action if you see a significant drop.
We typically experience a small drop initially, but with a successful migration, these rankings should stabilize within the first few weeks.
Tell Google about new domain
If you change your domain name, you should tell Google about it. This is easily done in Google Search Console, where you can report the migration.
Please note that this only applies when changing the domain name.
Anything but SEO
This guide is based on an SEO migration. Of course, there are many other things you need to be aware of. Below is a list of what we typically see:
- Facebook (URLs on ads)
- Facebook Feed (For Dynamic Product Ads)
- Google Ads (URLs on ads)
- Google Feed (for Google Shopping)
- Google Shopping (URLs on ads)
- Google Display (URLs on ads)
Bonus tip
If you follow our guide, you can easily update your Excel document to ensure that everything is as it should be.
You simply need to create 2 tabs in your Excel document, so you will have the following:
In Current_raw and New_raw you simply insert raw data for Screaming Frog.
In meta data, H1 and URLs, you can use VLOOKUP to pull this data into these 3 tabs.
This way, you can continuously optimize Current_raw and New_raw with fresh data and get an updated overview of how far you are in the process.
Need help with your migration?
We regularly help businesses/websites ensure they have a successful migration without losing relevant rankings and traffic.
If you would like help with this, you are more than welcome to contact us.
If this was interesting to you, you might also be interested in SEO strategy.
