Don't lose your SEO during a migration
How to protect your search engine rankings when moving to a new website platform, domain, or hosting provider.
Migrating your website is one of the highest-risk moments for your search engine rankings. Google has indexed your existing pages at their current addresses. If those addresses change without proper handling, your rankings can drop — sometimes significantly, and sometimes for months.
The good news: SEO drops after a migration are largely preventable. This guide explains what causes them and how we prevent them.
Quick summary
Protect your SEO during a migration by keeping URLs the same wherever possible, setting up 301 redirects for any URLs that do change, preserving all your page titles and meta descriptions, and submitting your new sitemap to Google after launch. Expect a small temporary dip — that is normal. A large or lasting drop means something went wrong.
Why migrations hurt SEO (and why they don't have to)
Google ranks your specific pages, at their specific addresses, based on signals it has built up over months or years. When a page moves to a new address, Google has to re-discover it and decide whether to transfer those signals to the new location.
A 301 redirect (a permanent redirect) tells Google and browsers: "This page has permanently moved to this new address." Google generally respects these and transfers the ranking value within a few weeks.
Without redirects, Google sees the old URLs as deleted pages and the new URLs as entirely new, unproven pages. That is when rankings crash.
SEO dips are normal — crashes are not
Almost every migration causes a small, temporary dip in rankings while Google re-crawls the new site. This is expected. A large drop or one that lasts more than a few months usually means redirects were missed, content was lost, or technical issues are blocking Google from crawling the new site.
Step 1 — Audit your current URLs before migration
Before anything moves, you need a complete list of every page that currently exists on your site and its exact address.
Export your sitemap. Visit yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in a browser. You will see a list of all your indexed pages. Save this page or copy the URLs.
Check Google Search Console. Log in at search.google.com/search-console. Under the Coverage report, you can see every URL Google has indexed for your site. Export this list. See what Google Search Console is if this is new to you.
Note your highest-value pages. Pages with the most traffic, the most backlinks (links from other websites), or the best ranking positions should be treated with extra care.
Step 2 — Preserve page titles and meta descriptions
Your page title and meta description (the short text that appears in Google search results) are SEO signals. They must be transferred to the new site exactly.
Document every important page's SEO title and meta description. Screenshot or copy them into a spreadsheet. This is tedious but essential.
Carry them over during setup. On WordPress, a plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math holds these values. On other platforms, look for an SEO settings panel on each page.
Check headings too. The main heading on each page (the H1 — your page's primary title) matters for SEO. Make sure it is preserved.
Step 3 — Map old URLs to new URLs
If any page addresses are changing during the migration, create a mapping table before the migration starts.
| Old URL | New URL | Match type |
|---|---|---|
/about-us | /about | Exact rename |
/blog/post-slug | /news/post-slug | Folder change |
/services/branding-packages | /services/branding | Shortened |
If the URL stays exactly the same, no redirect is needed. Only pages that change address need redirects.
Step 4 — Implement 301 redirects
A 301 redirect tells both browsers and Google: "This page has permanently moved." This is how ranking value transfers to the new URL.
Set up redirects before the domain switch. Redirects live on the new server. They must be in place before visitors (and Google) arrive.
Test every redirect after setup. Visit each old URL in a browser and confirm it lands on the correct new page.
Redirect to the most relevant page. If an old page has no direct equivalent, redirect to the closest matching page — not just the homepage. A homepage redirect is a last resort.
Do not redirect everything to the homepage
Redirecting dozens of old pages all to the homepage is a common shortcut that harms SEO. Google treats it as a "soft 404" (a page that pretends to exist but shows irrelevant content). Each page should redirect to its closest equivalent.
Step 5 — Handle domain changes carefully
If the domain itself is changing (e.g. moving from oldname.com to newname.com), the SEO challenge is greater because Google must re-associate all ranking signals with the new domain.
Use Google Search Console's domain change tool. After launch, log in to Search Console and use the "Change of Address" tool to notify Google of the domain change. This speeds up the re-association.
Keep the old domain active for at least a year. Keep redirects running from the old domain to the new one. Don't let the old domain expire — incoming links still flow through it.
Update your Google Business Profile. If you have a Google Business Profile (Google Maps listing), update the website URL there too.
Step 6 — Post-launch technical checks
After the migration goes live, run these checks within 24–48 hours.
Submit a new sitemap to Google Search Console. Go to Search Console, select your new property, and submit the new sitemap URL (usually yoursite.com/sitemap.xml).
Check that Google can crawl the site. In Search Console, use the URL Inspection tool to check a few key pages. Confirm they return "URL is on Google" or "URL is available to Google."
Confirm no pages are accidentally blocked. A setting called robots.txt can accidentally block Google from reading your site. Check that it is not set to block all crawlers.
Test your redirects again from a fresh browser. Confirm old URLs still redirect correctly after the domain is live.
What a normal post-migration timeline looks like
| Timeframe | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Days 1–7 | Google re-crawls the new site. Some rankings fluctuate. |
| Weeks 2–4 | Rankings stabilize. Small drops usually recover here. |
| Months 2–3 | Full recovery for well-executed migrations. |
| 3+ months ongoing | If rankings have not recovered, investigate missed redirects or technical issues. |
Common questions
Related guides
- Pre-migration checklist
- What is SEO?
- What is Google Search Console?
- SEO-friendly URLs
- DNS propagation: why changes take time
- Migrating from Squarespace to WordPress
Need a hand?
Learn more
Pre-migration checklist
Everything to do before any website, email, or platform migration begins — backups, credentials, redirects, timelines, and go/no-go criteria.
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