Website migration without losing SEO

A website migration service protects what a site has already earned when it moves: search visibility, inbound links, tracking and the client’s email. We run the move as your agency’s back-room team, with a checklist your client can read and your name on every document.

Lost traffic after a migration usually comes from a few avoidable mistakes. Redirects go missing, titles change, a staging noindex stays in place or tracking never comes across. Our process is built to catch each of them before launch.

What a website migration service has to protect

Each kind of move puts different things at risk, so the plan starts by naming the move.

Move	What can go wrong	What we check
New host, same domain and URLs	Lost DNS or email records, PHP version differences, missing scheduled tasks	Full DNS export, lowered TTL before cutover, MX and SPF records, PHP version, cron
Domain change	Rankings drop if redirects or Search Console are mishandled	One-to-one 301s from every old URL, the Change of Address tool, the old domain kept renewed
Platform change, such as Shopify to WooCommerce	New URL patterns, lost product or customer data, dropped metadata	URL mapping by pattern and by page, record counts compared, metadata carried over
Redesign on new URLs	Merged or removed pages with no redirect, internal links pointing at old URLs	A signed-off redirect map, internal links updated, no redirect chains

Redirect mapping and URL parity

Every URL with traffic, links or rankings gets a mapped destination before launch. We build the list from a full crawl, the XML sitemaps, Search Console, analytics landing pages and the pages other sites link to.

• Redirects are permanent (301) and one-to-one wherever a matching page exists, never a blanket redirect to the home page.
• Old URLs go straight to their final address, including redirects that already existed before this move.
• Titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonicals, hreflang and structured data carry across page by page.
• PDFs and images that rank or attract links get mapped too.

Staging checks before cutover

We rehearse the whole migration on staging before the live move. Staging stays password-protected and set to noindex, and we remove it within 14 days of launch unless you ask otherwise.

Before cutover we crawl staging and compare it with the old site: status codes, metadata, canonicals, internal links and redirects. We test forms, checkout, logins and tracking events end to end, and you sign off. On launch day the most important check is the simplest one: the noindex tag and the staging password are gone from the live site.

Post-launch monitoring in Search Console

After cutover we submit the new sitemap, then watch the Search Console page indexing report and crawl stats for 404s, redirect errors and dropped pages. We compare rankings, organic landing pages and conversions against the pre-launch baseline.

Some movement in the first weeks is normal while Google processes the redirects. We never promise that rankings will hold, but a documented migration removes the avoidable causes of loss.

Pricing and where migration fits

A migration sits outside the monthly plans, so it gets its own written scope and fixed price within two business days of the brief. The rates page explains how one-off scopes and plans fit together. When customer accounts or orders move, we work under the UK IDTA or Addendum and EU SCCs, as our security page explains.

Migration is part of our white-label web development work. SEO agencies can pair it with our technical SEO implementation, and store moves can run alongside WooCommerce development.