PLAYBOOK
Move the site.
Keep the rankings you have.
Replatforming, a redesign or a new domain can each wipe out years of search traffic in a week, and it's nearly always for avoidable reasons: a redirect that was missed, a staging rule left switched on, a template that dropped the titles. This playbook is the checklist we'd want in hand before, during and after launch.
A launch date is set, and SEO was invited late.
The new site is nearly built and the URLs are changing. Somebody has asked whether SEO will be affected, usually a few weeks before go-live. The honest answer is that it depends on what you do in those weeks, and on how quickly you catch what breaks on the day.
"The URLs are changing, but the content is the same."
To a search engine, a changed URL is a new page until a redirect says otherwise. Every one needs mapping.
"We'll sort the redirects after launch."
By then the old URLs are returning errors, and the links pointing at them are going nowhere.
"Will we lose traffic?"
Some movement is normal. A collapse is a sign that something specific was missed, and it can usually be found.
Before, during and after launch.
Most of the work happens before go-live. The steps after it are about catching problems in days, while they are still cheap to fix.
Record the old site
Crawl every page while the old site is still live. Note positions, traffic and goals for the pages that matter. Without this you have nothing to compare the new site with.
Site audit →Search Console analytics →Decide where every URL goes
List each old URL beside its new one. Start with the pages that hold your links and your traffic, because those are the ones you can't afford to lose.
Page-level link equity →Crawl the new site at once
Run a full crawl as soon as it's live. You're looking for redirects that fail, pages blocked by a leftover staging rule, and templates that lost their titles or schema.
Errors and redirects →Crawlability →Free: Redirect chain tracer →Repair what broke
Fixes with one correct answer are applied on the live pages. Redirect and server changes go to the developers with the exact target for each URL.
AutoFix →Automated technical SEO guide →Follow it for weeks
Mark launch day on the chart. Then watch positions, clicks and visits against the baseline until they settle.
SEO uplift →Lost links →Test your redirects by hand on launch day.
Paste an old URL into the redirect tracer and you'll see every hop to its final page. Do your ten most-linked pages before anything else.
The work, stage by stage.
Ledgerly is our demo account, a B2B accounting tool for agencies. It moved its feature pages from /product/ to /features/ on a new platform.
Know what you have before you move it.
After a migration, everyone asks whether things are better or worse. You can only answer if you wrote down where things stood beforehand.
- A full crawl of the old siteEvery URL, its title, canonical, status code and schema.
- Where the traffic and links arePages ranked by the links they earn, and by the search visits they bring.
- Sixteen months of search dataSearch Console history is there from the day you connect, so you can compare with the same period last year.
Every old URL needs somewhere to go.
The redirect map is the dull part of a migration and the part that decides how it goes. Do the important pages by hand and check them twice.
- Old URL beside new URLOne row each, pointing at the closest matching page. Sending everything to the homepage throws the value away.
- The linked pages firstBacklinks shows which of your pages earn links, so those go to the top of the list.
- One hop onlyOld to new, directly. A chain through an interim URL is a common leftover from earlier migrations.
Find out what broke while it's still day one.
Something always slips through. The difference between a wobble and a collapse is usually whether it was caught in a day or in a month.
- Every old URL, testedDoes it redirect, and does it land on the right page in one hop?
- Access for search botsA robots.txt rule or a noindex left over from staging is the classic launch-day fault.
- What the new templates outputTitles, descriptions, canonicals and schema, compared with the old crawl.
- Content in the HTMLIf the new platform loads content by script, check it's still there in the raw HTML.
Fix it fast, then keep watching.
Rankings usually move around for a few weeks after a migration. Your job in that time is to make sure nothing on your side is adding to it.
- Safe fixes, appliedAutoFix restores missing titles and other tags with one correct answer, and logs each change.
- Redirects, sent to the developersEach failed or chained redirect goes over with its correct target.
- Links that now hit a redirectBacklinks flags links pointing at redirected URLs, and links that have dropped away.
- A marker on launch daySo every chart afterwards is read against it.
What usually goes wrong, and where it shows up
| The fault | How you notice it | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| A redirect was missed | Old URLs return errors, and their rankings disappear. | Crawl the old URL list after launch. |
| Redirects go through a chain | Pages load, but slowly, and link value leaks at each hop. | Errors and redirects. |
| A staging rule went live | Whole sections vanish from search within days. | robots.txt and noindex tags on the new site. |
| The new template dropped tags | Titles or schema are missing across one page type. | Compare the new crawl with the old one. |
| Internal links still use old URLs | Every click passes through a redirect. | Internal links on the new site. |
| Content now loads by script | Pages look fine to people and thin to crawlers. | Raw HTML against the rendered page. |
A migration that went quietly.
The aim is for nobody outside the team to notice. Here is what that looked like for the demo site.
Before launch, the team had
- –A crawl of all 1,284 old pages
- –A redirect map, with the 212 linked pages checked by hand
- –Positions, visits and goals written down
- –A date that avoided the busiest month
A week after launch, it had
- ✓Every old URL landing on its new page in one hop
- ✓86 missing titles restored on the day they were found
- ✓A fix log to show the developers and the board
- ✓A marker on the chart, and a baseline to read it against
We haven't shown what rankings did. Some movement after a migration is normal, and how long it lasts is up to the search engine.
Whoever owns the launch, this is the checklist.
How do you migrate a site without losing rankings?
Record the old site before you touch it: a full crawl, plus positions, traffic and goals for the pages that matter. Map every old URL to its closest new page, starting with the ones that hold links and traffic. Crawl the new site the moment it goes live, fix what broke within days, and then watch positions and visits against the baseline for several weeks.
Key facts
- Most migration losses come from a small number of avoidable faults: missed redirects, leftover staging rules and templates that drop tags
- A changed URL is a new page to a search engine until a redirect says otherwise
- Redirect each old URL to its closest match, in one hop. Sending everything to the homepage wastes it
- Crawl the new site on launch day. A fault found in a day costs far less than one found in a month
- Some movement in rankings after a migration is normal
- SEORCE does not build the redirect map for you. It shows which pages matter most, and checks every redirect once the new site is live
Last reviewed 15 October 2026 by the SEORCE team.
Frequently asked questions.
Some movement is normal, even when everything is done properly, because search engines have to reprocess the site. A large or lasting drop usually means something specific was missed, such as redirects or a blocked section.
As long as you can keep them. A year is the minimum worth planning for, and permanent is better, because other sites will go on linking to the old URLs.
A 301 for a permanent move. A 302 tells search engines the change is temporary, which is the wrong message for a migration.
In your quietest period. Avoid the weeks before your busiest season, because that is when a fault costs most and there is least time to fix it.
No. The map is a decision about where each page should go, and that is yours to make. SEORCE shows which pages earn links and traffic so you know where to start, and it tests the redirects once the new site is live.
Add the new domain as its own project. You keep the old project's history as your baseline and compare the two.
Whether search bots can reach the site at all. A robots.txt rule or noindex tag carried over from staging does more damage, faster, than anything else. Crawlability checks access for each bot.
Yes. The free redirect chain tracer follows any URL through each hop to its destination. It tests one URL at a time, so use it for your most important pages and a full crawl for the rest.
Start with the baseline, before anything moves.
Add your site and run the first crawl now. If the domain is changing, add the new one as its own project when it launches.
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