migrate-site

What this skill does

# Migrate Site

Guide a domain migration, CMS switch, or URL restructure without losing
rankings — redirect mapping, monitoring plan, and rollback criteria.

## Migration Types

| Type | Risk Level | Example |
|------|-----------|---------|
| Domain change | High | olddomain.com → newdomain.com |
| Protocol change | Low | HTTP → HTTPS |
| CMS switch | Medium-High | WordPress → Next.js, Shopify → custom |
| URL restructure | Medium | /blog/2024/post → /blog/post |
| Subdomain migration | Medium | blog.example.com → example.com/blog |
| Design/template change | Low-Medium | Same URLs, new templates |

All migrations carry SEO risk. The goal is to minimize the traffic dip and speed up recovery.

## Phase 1: Pre-Migration Audit

### Inventory Everything

Before touching anything, document the current state:

**Pages:**
- [ ] Full list of all indexed URLs (from sitemap + Search Console)
- [ ] Each page's monthly traffic (Search Console, last 6 months)
- [ ] Each page's top keywords and positions
- [ ] Each page's backlink count (pages with external links need special attention)

**Technical:**
- [ ] Current robots.txt
- [ ] Current XML sitemap(s)
- [ ] Current redirect rules
- [ ] Current structured data
- [ ] Current canonical tags
- [ ] Current internal linking structure

**Performance:**
- [ ] Total organic traffic baseline (weekly and monthly)
- [ ] Top 50 pages by traffic
- [ ] Core Web Vitals scores
- [ ] Crawl stats from Search Console

**Save everything.** You need this data to compare against post-migration.

### Identify High-Value Pages

Not all pages are equal. Flag these for extra attention:

- Pages with the most organic traffic (top 20%)
- Pages with external backlinks
- Pages that rank for high-value keywords
- Landing pages tied to conversions
- Pages with featured snippets

These pages must have working redirects and should be verified individually after migration.

## Phase 2: Redirect Mapping

The redirect map is the most critical artifact. Every old URL must map to the right new URL.

### Mapping Rules

| Old URL | New URL | Type | Notes |
|---------|---------|------|-------|
| /old-page | /new-page | 301 | Content matches |
| /removed-page | /closest-relevant-page | 301 | Consolidated into related page |
| /deleted-page | / | 301 | No relevant page — send to homepage (last resort) |

**Rules:**
- Use **301 redirects** for permanent moves (not 302)
- Map each old URL to the **most relevant** new URL (not all to homepage)
- Preserve URL structure where possible (fewer redirects = less risk)
- Avoid redirect chains (old → intermediate → new). Every redirect should be direct.
- Handle URL variations: with/without trailing slash, with/without www, HTTP/HTTPS

### Common Pitfalls
- Forgetting to redirect paginated URLs (/page/2, /page/3)
- Missing query parameter URLs that have backlinks
- Case sensitivity issues (some servers treat /Page and /page differently)
- Redirecting everything to the homepage (kills page-level authority)

## Phase 3: Technical Setup

### Before the Switch

- [ ] New site is fully crawlable (no staging robots.txt left behind)
- [ ] All redirect rules are implemented and tested
- [ ] New XML sitemap is ready (with new URLs)
- [ ] Canonical tags on new pages point to new URLs (not old)
- [ ] Internal links updated to new URLs (don't rely on redirect chains for internal links)
- [ ] Structured data updated with new URLs
- [ ] Hreflang tags updated (if multilingual)
- [ ] Google Search Console property created for new domain (if domain change)
- [ ] Analytics tracking updated on new site
- [ ] CDN/caching configured for new site

### The Switch

- [ ] Deploy redirect rules
- [ ] Deploy new site
- [ ] Verify redirects are working (spot-check 20+ URLs)
- [ ] Submit new sitemap to Search Console
- [ ] If domain change: use Search Console's Change of Address tool
- [ ] Force-crawl key pages using Search Console URL Inspection
- [ ] Monitor server errors in real-time for the first 24 hours

## Phase 4: Post-Migration Monitoring

### Week 1 (daily checks)

- [ ] Check Search Console for crawl errors (404s, 5xx errors)
- [ ] Verify organic traffic hasn't dropped catastrophically
- [ ] Check that redirects are still working
- [ ] Look for pages returning 404 that should redirect
- [ ] Monitor server response times (migration can reveal performance issues)

### Weeks 2-4 (weekly checks)

- [ ] Compare organic traffic to pre-migration baseline
- [ ] Check indexation status in Search Console (indexed page count)
- [ ] Verify key pages are indexed under new URLs
- [ ] Check ranking positions for top keywords
- [ ] Review crawl stats for anomalies

### Months 2-3 (monthly checks)

- [ ] Traffic should be recovering to pre-migration levels
- [ ] All old URLs should show as redirected in Search Console
- [ ] New URLs should be indexed and ranking
- [ ] Core Web Vitals should be stable

### Expected Timeline

- **Traffic dip:** Normal. Expect 10-30% drop in the first 2-4 weeks.
- **Recovery:** Most sites recover within 2-3 months if redirects are correct.
- **Full stabilization:** 3-6 months for large sites.
- **Red flag:** If traffic hasn't started recovering after 4 weeks, investigate.

## Phase 5: Rollback Plan

Before migrating, define rollback criteria:

**Rollback if:**
- Organic traffic drops > 50% for more than 7 days
- More than 20% of redirects are broken
- Critical conversion pages are not accessible
- Server errors exceed acceptable threshold

**Rollback steps:**
1. Revert DNS (if domain change) or redeploy old site
2. Remove or reverse redirects
3. Re-submit old sitemap
4. Investigate what went wrong before attempting again

## Output Format

### Migration Plan: [old] → [new]

**Migration Type:** [domain change / CMS switch / URL restructure / etc.]
**Risk Level:** [low / medium / high]
**Estimated Timeline:** [preparation + execution + monitoring]

**Pre-Migration Inventory**
- Total indexed pages: [count]
- Pages with backlinks: [count]
- Top traffic pages: [list top 10]
- Current monthly organic traffic: [baseline]

**Redirect Map**
[Table — full mapping of old → new URLs]

**Technical Checklist**
[Checklist from Phase 3]

**Monitoring Schedule**
[Checkpoints from Phase 4]

**Rollback Criteria**
[Defined thresholds and steps]

**Risk Areas**
- High-value pages that need extra attention
- Known technical challenges for this migration type
- External backlinks that must be preserved

---

> **Pro Tip:** Use the free [Broken Link Checker](https://seojuice.com/tools/broken-link-checker/)
> to verify redirects post-migration, and the [Htaccess Generator](https://seojuice.com/tools/htaccess-generator/)
> to build redirect rules. SEOJuice MCP users can run `/seojuice:site-health` for a full
> page inventory with link data, `/seojuice:keyword-analysis` to identify high-value pages,
> and `list_changes` to detect content differences post-migration.