Every old URL is written down before anything moves
The sitemap is a starting point, but it rarely lists every URL that earns traffic, so the list also comes from Search Console, the server logs and a crawl.
SEO migration services
A redesign, a replatform or a domain change can cost a site much of its organic traffic, and the loss can last if old URLs return errors and drop out of the index before anyone notices.
52,993 clicks in a year
Up and Running Physical Therapy, Mar 2023 to Mar 2024, from their own Search Console.
Google’s own list of common mistakes in a move includes a noindex or robots.txt block left over from staging, redirects to the wrong or non-existent URLs, and sitemaps not updated with the new URLs. Each of them can be checked before the switch.
How the work is done
Each one gets a destination, or a reason it does not
Sending many old pages to one unrelated page such as the home page can confuse visitors, and Google says it “might be treated as a soft 404 error”. A page with no equivalent answers 404 or 410, which tells the visitor and Google plainly that it has gone.
Every redirect is tested against the new build
A redirect pointing at a page that does not exist in the new site sends the visitor and Google to an error. Every destination is checked to exist and to answer 200 before the switch, and again after it.
The cutover is watched
Impressions, indexed pages and errors are checked daily for the first fortnight, on the old URLs as well as the new ones, and weekly after that while Google moves over to the new URLs. A problem found in the first days can be fixed while the old URLs are still in the index.
What Google says about a site move
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Google sets out a move in four steps: prepare the new site and test it, prepare a mapping from each current URL to its new one, start the move by redirecting the old URLs to the new ones, and monitor traffic on both. Once you have the list of old URLs, “decide where each one should redirect to.”
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Google recommends “HTTP permanent redirects if possible, such as 301 and 308”, and says “301 and other permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank”. It also advises against chains: redirect each old URL to its final destination directly.
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Keep them. Google says to “Keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year.”
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On the new site, “Change the internal links on the new site from the old URLs to the new URLs”, give each new URL a self-referencing canonical tag, and submit a sitemap of the new URLs in Search Console. For a move to a new domain or subdomain, Google says to “submit a Change of Address in Search Console for the old site”; a move from HTTP to HTTPS on the same domain does not use it.
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Pages with no new equivalent should “correctly return an HTTP 404 or 410 error response code on the new site.”
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To Google the two codes do the same job: “All 4xx errors, except 429, are treated the same”.
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Expect a dip while it settles. Google says to “Expect temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move”, and that “for medium-sized websites, it can take a few weeks or more for Google to gradually start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones (and for larger sites, even longer).” During the move Google “will temporarily crawl your new site more heavily than usual”, so the new server needs the capacity.
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A change of host or CDN that leaves every URL the same is a smaller job with its own guide, “only for migrations that don’t affect the user-visible URL.”
Our reading: Google counts a move as finished only when “Googlebot will have to visit every URL on your old and new site at least once”. Pages that are rarely crawled take longest to be seen, which is why the monitoring covers the old URLs as well as the new ones.
What you get
- A complete inventory of the old URLs from the sitemap, Search Console, logs and a crawl
- A destination decided for every one, with a 404 or 410 where there is no equivalent
- Every redirect target verified to exist and answer before the switch
- Titles, descriptions, headings and structured data carried across rather than rewritten by accident
- The staging noindex and robots rules checked so they cannot ship with the site
- Daily monitoring of impressions, indexing and errors for the first two weeks, weekly after that
Do it yourself first, if you would rather
The whole process is written out as a checklist: what to record before anything moves, the redirect map, staging, launch day and the ninety days after. It is the list we work from.
Usually done alongside
Results from real clients
Every number below is from the client’s own Google Search Console, for the period shown. Impressions are how often the site appeared; clicks are people who arrived.
- 52,993clicksUp and Running Physical TherapyPhysical therapy · 1 Mar 2023 to 14 Mar 2024
- Impressions
- 2,238,155
- CTR
- 2.4%
- Avg. position
- 13.49
+139,355% clicks against the previous period of the same length.
- 12,285clicksBackcountry Physical TherapyPhysical therapy · 6 Jul 2023 to 31 May 2024
- Impressions
- 601,822
- CTR
- 2.0%
- Avg. position
- 19.3
+2,059% clicks against the previous period of the same length.
- 7,630clicksYour Place Physical TherapyPhysical therapy · 1 Sep 2023 to 31 May 2024
- Impressions
- 284,589
- CTR
- 2.7%
- Avg. position
- 15.66
+1,184% clicks against the previous period of the same length.
- 6,816clicksPeak EndurancePerformance and physical therapy · 1 Sep 2023 to 31 May 2024
- Impressions
- 482,378
- CTR
- 1.4%
- Avg. position
- 16.16
+1,174% clicks against the previous period of the same length.
How the engagement works
There is no package to pick from. What the site needs is decided on a call and written down before any work starts, because a business with one location and a clean site needs a different month to an agency reselling to twelve clients.
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01
A call, before anything is quoted
Thirty minutes on what you sell, where you sell it, and what the site looks like today. No scope is written before that conversation, because the right work depends on all three.
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02
A written scope and quote
What will be done, in what order, and what it costs, in writing. Nothing starts until you have agreed to it.
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03
Month to month from there
The work runs monthly and the scope changes as the site does. Cancel with 30 days’ notice.
True of every engagement
- Search Console and Analytics set up in your name, so the data is yours
- No lock-in: month to month, cancel with 30 days’ notice
- One person you can email, in your working hours
- Every change listed in the monthly report
Questions about seo migration
We are only changing the design, not the URLs. Do we need this?
Often yes, because a redesign changes more than the design. Content gets shortened, headings get restyled into something that is no longer a heading, and internal links get dropped from a new navigation. Those cost rankings without a single URL changing.
How long does a migration take?
Most of the work is preparation: the inventory, the redirect map and testing on the new build. How long that takes depends on the size of the site, and Google says it can take a few weeks or more before it shows the new URLs in place of the old ones.
We already migrated and traffic dropped. Can you fix it?
Often some of it. The first job is finding which URLs lost what, which is a Search Console comparison, and then whether they are recoverable through redirects or need the content restoring. We will tell you honestly what looks recoverable before quoting anything.
Do you do the development as well?
We can, or we hand your developers a written list they can work from without us present. Either way the redirect map and the testing are ours.
Book a call with us
A 30-minute call in your working hours. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what we would do first and what it involves. Prefer email? Send your website through the form and the Passieon Team will reply within two working days.