Right then. You’re planning to move your website, and everyone’s telling you horror stories about traffic drops, lost rankings, and digital disasters. And you’re panicking.
Stop, take a deep breath. Let’s sort this out properly.
Yes, website migration can be a proper pain in the arse. But it’s not rocket science. Like moving house, it’s all about planning, preparation, and not letting the moving company chuck your antique china around like it’s a frisbee.
Why Are You Moving, Really?
Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s talk about why you’re considering this move in the first place. Because just like moving house, website migration isn’t something you do for a laugh on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Good Reasons For Migration:
- Your current platform is holding you back
- You’re switching to HTTPS for security
- Your site structure needs a complete overhaul
- You’re rebranding with a new domain
Rubbish Reasons For Migration:
- Someone told you the new platform is ‘trendy’
- You fancy a change
- Your competitor just did it
- You think it’ll magically fix your rankings
Part 1: Before You Even Think About Packing
Remember when you last moved house and found that box of stuff from 2003 that you didn’t even know you had? Website migrations are like that, but with more broken links and outdated plugins than old bank statements.
The “Don’t Mess This Up” Checklist
First up, you need to figure out what you’ve actually got. And I don’t mean a quick glance at your sitemap and calling it done.
Take A Proper Inventory
Fire up your analytics and let’s see what’s actually going on with your site:
- Which pages get traffic
- Where your backlinks point to
- What content actually converts
- Which pages should have been binned years ago
Don’t guess at this stuff. I’ve seen too many businesses lose their best-performing pages because “nobody reads that old blog post anymore” – except for the 500 people who visit it every month.
Set Up Your Moving Timeline
This isn’t a weekend job. I don’t care what that “website migration in 24 hours!” YouTube video told you. You need:
- At least a month for planning
- A few weeks for testing
- A full day for the actual move
- Several weeks of monitoring afterward
And that’s for a simple migration. If you’re doing something more complex, double those timeframes.
Benchmarking: Take Pictures of Your Current House
Before you start packing boxes (or touching any code), document everything:
- Current rankings for key terms
- Organic traffic numbers
- Conversion rates
- Core Web Vitals scores
- Page load times
Without these benchmarks, you won’t know if things have gone wrong until it’s too late.
Part 2: Packing Up Your Digital House
Remember that time you just threw everything into boxes without labeling them and spent six months looking for your kettle? Let’s not do the digital equivalent of that.
Your Technical Packing List
Create Your Staging Site
First up, you need a proper testing ground. Your staging site is like having the keys to your new house early – you can start setting things up without having to live there yet.
Think of it as your digital blank canvas, but for heaven’s sake:
- Password protect it
- Block search engines from indexing it
- Don’t redirect anything to it yet
- Keep it secret, keep it safe 💍
Map Out Every Single URL
This is the bit everyone tries to rush, and then wonders why their traffic tanks. You need to know:
- Where every page is moving to
- What’s getting redirected
- What’s getting binned
- What’s getting merged
Open up that spreadsheet and start mapping. Yes, it’s boring. Yes, it’s essential. No, you can’t skip it.
Use something like Screaming Frog if you have access to it.
The Truth About Redirects
Right, let’s talk about redirects. They’re not just a digital forwarding address – they’re the difference between your users finding their way to your new home and ending up in digital limbo.
For each URL, you need to decide:
- 301 redirect: “We’ve moved here permanently”
- 410: “This content has gone to the great website in the sky”
- No redirect: “This URL never existed, what are you on about?”
And for the love of all that is holy, don’t redirect everything to your homepage. It’s like telling everyone who visits your old house “just drive around the neighbourhood, you’ll find us eventually.”
Testing, Testing, And More Testing
Before you even think about going live:
- Check every redirect works
- Make sure all your tracking is set up
- Test your forms
- Check your site on mobile
- Click every menu item
- Test your checkout if you have one
- Break things on purpose to see what happens
Part 3: Moving Day – When Things Get Real
Right then. Coffee brewed? Phone charged? Snacks ready? Good, because this is where it gets interesting.
The “Don’t Panic” Migration Process
Before You Push the Button
Remember that scene in every action film where they’re about to launch the missile and need two keys turned at once? This is your website’s version of that.
Double-check your essentials:
- Full backup of your current site? ✓
- Staging site tested and ready? ✓
- Redirect map finalised? ✓
- Analytics tracking codes ready? ✓
- Everyone knows not to update anything? ✓
Picking Your Moment
Don’t start this at 4:45pm on a Friday. I don’t care how tempting it is to “use the weekend” – you want your whole team available when (not if) something needs fixing.
Best times to migrate:
- Early morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday
- During your lowest traffic period
- When your developer isn’t on holiday
- When you’ve got a clear schedule for the next 48 hours
The Actual Migration
Here’s where we do things in order:
- Lower your DNS TTL (it’s like telling the internet to check your new address more frequently)
- Push your staging site live
- Update your DNS records
- Start implementing your redirects
- Submit your new XML sitemap to Google
- Start your monitoring tools
And for heaven’s sake, don’t skip any of these steps because “it’ll probably be fine.” That’s like moving house and not bothering to tell the postman – chaos will ensue.
When Something Goes Wrong
Notice I said “when” not “if”. Something always needs tweaking. Common fires to put out:
- Pages returning 404 errors
- SSL certificate issues
- Cache problems
- DNS propagation taking ages
- Analytics tracking going weird
Keep your developer’s number handy. And no, refreshing the page 47 times won’t make DNS propagate faster.
Part 4: Settling Into Your New Digital Home
Right then. The move’s done, but don’t break out the champagne just yet. This is like those first few weeks in a new house where you’re finding out if the heating actually works and whether the neighbours are running illegal raves at the weekend.
The First 24 Hours
Immediate Checks
Time for your first proper inspection. Get your testing tools ready because you need to check:
- Critical pages (homepage, main product pages, checkout)
- Contact forms (test them yourself – don’t trust the “it should work” approach)
- Payment systems (make a test purchase if you’re an ecommerce site)
- Mobile responsiveness (because half your users are probably on their phones)
- Load times (if pages are loading slower than a snail in treacle, you’ve got problems)
When Your Traffic Drops
Don’t panic if your traffic takes a nosedive initially. It’s normal – like having fewer visitors because they’re not sure where your new house is yet. But you need to monitor what’s happening:
- Check Google Search Console daily
- Keep an eye on your rankings
- Monitor your server logs
- Watch your conversion rates
If things haven’t started recovering after a couple of weeks, then we need to investigate.
The First Month
This is your crucial monitoring period. You need to track:
SEO Health Checks
- Are your redirects working properly?
- Is Google indexing your new pages?
- Are your important pages ranking?
- Is your site structure being crawled correctly?
Performance Monitoring
- Core Web Vitals (are they stable?)
- Server response times
- Error rates
- Conversion tracking
Common Problems To Watch For
- Redirect chains (when one redirect points to another redirect and then another one – it’s an easy trap to fall into)
- Missing meta data
- Broken internal links
- Lost tracking codes
- Orphaned pages
Part 5: When Things Go Wrong (And They Probably Will)
Right, let’s talk about what to do when things aren’t quite going to plan. Because even the best-planned migrations can throw a wobbly.
Common Disasters And How to Fix Them
The “Where Did All My Traffic Go?” Panic
If your traffic’s dropped off faster than you expected, check:
- Your Redirects First
- Are they actually working?
- Are they pointing to the right places?
- Have you got any redirect loops? (When page A points to B, which points to C, which points back to A)
- Your Search Console
- Check for crawl errors
- Look for manual actions
- Review your index coverage
- Your Analytics Setup
- Is your tracking code actually firing?
- Are you looking at the right property?
- Have you filtered out your own traffic?
The “Google Hates My New Site” Meltdown
If your rankings have tanked:
- Compare your old and new content (did someone accidentally delete something important?)
- Check your internal linking structure (are you linking to old URLs or redirects?)
- Review your meta titles and descriptions (did you transfer the correct info over?)
- Make sure your canonical tags are correct (did you forget to canonicalise duplicate info?)
Remember: Google doesn’t hate your site. But it might be a bit confused about what you’ve done with the place.
Website Migration Emergency Response Plan
When things go properly wrong, here’s your priority list:
- Check Critical Functions
- Can people buy things?
- Can they contact you?
- Are important pages accessible?
- Server Issues
- Check your error logs
- Monitor server response times
- Review your hosting setup
- Content Problems
- Missing pages
- Broken images
- Formatting issues
- Mobile display problems
The Nuclear Option
If everything’s gone completely pear-shaped, you might need to roll back to your old site. This is why we kept that backup. It’s like having the keys to your old house just in case the new one turns out to be built on an ancient burial ground.
Don’t Panic!
Website migration isn’t black magic, but it does require attention to detail and a solid plan. Get the basics right, monitor everything, and don’t be afraid to call in help if you need it.
And remember – if anyone tells you they can migrate your site with zero impact on your rankings, they’re either lying or they’ve got access to Google’s secret control panel (spoiler: they haven’t).
Need help with a tricky migration? As a UK SEO Consultant that’s right up my street – book in a call and let’s see if I can help.