Services / Website migration

Website migration SEO for redesigns, platform moves and domain changes

35%
of old addresses lost in the redesigns we studied
185
project pages planned through one agency’s rebuild
1 year
minimum Google suggests keeping redirects
Plan your migration ↗

A website migration is where years of search history are most easily lost. We map every old address to its new home, check the new site before it goes live and watch it after launch, so Google keeps what your old pages earned. When we checked 82 design agencies' own redesigns, 35% of their old addresses ended in an error, the homepage or a catch-all page.

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What is at risk

Every old page carries history Google has already counted.

Each page Google knows about has earned something: the searches it appears for, the links pointing at it, the clicks it has had. Change its address without a plan and that is thrown away, usually without anyone noticing until weeks after launch.

Google says to map every old URL to its new one, not to redirect many old pages to the homepage, and to expect some fluctuation while it catches up. For a medium-sized site that can take a few weeks or more. A good migration keeps that period short and its losses small.

Fact Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes: map old URLs to new ones, avoid redirecting many to the homepage, keep redirects for generally at least a year, and expect temporary fluctuation.

Migrations we cover

Any change that moves addresses.

Redesign or rebuild

New design, new templates, often new URLs. The most common way old pages get lost.

Platform change

Moving to or from WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace or a custom build, where every platform writes URLs its own way.

Domain change or rebrand

A new name, a new domain, or a business that has been bought or merged.

Merging sites

Two or more websites becoming one, with overlapping pages to reconcile.

URL restructure

New folders, new categories or a cleaner structure on the same domain.

HTTPS and www clean-up

Making every version of your address end at one secure address, in one step.

Subdomain to folder

Bringing a blog, shop or help centre from its own subdomain into the main site.

Country and language versions

Adding or restructuring regional sites, with the hreflang that ties them together.

What we cover

Before, at and after launch.

Before launch

  • A benchmark of what earns traffic now, from at least 12 months of your Search Console data where you have it
  • A full inventory of old addresses: crawl, sitemaps, Search Console, pages other sites link to, and archived pages
  • A decision for every page: keep, merge or retire
  • A one-to-one redirect map: permanent redirects, one hop, every variant of each address
  • The new URL structure, before anything is built
  • A content check: what earned traffic still exists on the new site
  • Page titles and descriptions written from the searches your own data shows
  • A structured data reference, matched to what each page shows
  • A technical guide: indexing, canonicals, robots.txt, sitemaps, hreflang, internal links and access for AI search engines
  • Analytics and Search Console set up to carry on without a gap

At launch

  • A handover call with your developers or agency
  • A pre-launch check of the staging site, with a pass or fail list
  • Staging kept out of Google until launch
  • Launch-day checks: redirects tested from outside, indexing rules switched over, new sitemap submitted
  • A Change of Address in Search Console, for domain moves

After launch

  • A check at two weeks: redirects, indexing and errors
  • Reviews at 30, 60 and 90 days against the benchmark
  • A fix list for anything that slipped, in priority order
  • The links you control updated: Business Profile, directories, social profiles and partner pages
  • Redirects kept in place for at least a year
Our research

What happens to old pages after a redesign.

We took 82 web design agencies' own websites, listed the pages the Internet Archive captured between 2021 and 2023, and requested each one on the live site in October 2026. These are the people who build other companies' websites.

1,076 old addresses with a clear outcomePagesShare
Still worked at the same address50347%
Redirected to a specific page19618%
Returned an error (404 or 410)31129%
Sent to the homepage283%
Sent to a catch-all page384%

Only 19% of the agencies kept every old address working or pointed at a specific page. A 404 is the right answer for a page with nothing to replace it, so not every error is a mistake, but most of these pages had something to say.

Ours 1,204 archived addresses from 82 agency websites in the UK, US and Australia, tested on 12 and 13 October 2026; 128 refused or timed out and are left out of the shares. The full study and checklist.

Case study

We Digital Hub: a rebuild that kept its history.

A branding and design agency was rebuilding its website in 2026. We started with twelve months of its own Search Console data. Around 95% of clicks came from people searching its name, and buyers searched for "brand identity design agency" far more than "branding agency", which shaped every new page title.

The site held around 185 project pages already known to Google. The plan carried the strongest projects across to the new portfolio and pointed each old address to its new home with a permanent redirect.

  • Delivered: an implementation guide covering URL structure, indexing, redirects, sitemap and crawler access, 16 validated structured data blocks, titles and descriptions for eight key pages, a handover call and pre-launch checks.
  • Fixed along the way: Google now indexes a single secure version of the homepage, and checkout pages stay out of search results.
  • Result: their team had the new titles live within days. They credit us on their own site for supporting "the search planning and technical review of our website rebuild".
Read the case study ↗
Our own migration

We have done this to ourselves, too.

When we relaunched this website in August 2026, we wrote 27 redirect rules, including both the slash and no-slash version of every address, because a server treats them as different pages. Eight weeks later, two retired addresses were still showing in Google's AI report, and two of our rules turned out to be wrong.

We wrote up what we changed and why, because a migration plan is only as good as the checks after it. What we learned from our own relaunch.

How it works

Seven steps, from access to aftercare.

  1. 01
    AccessYour current site, the new design or staging site, and read access to Search Console if you have it.
  2. 02
    Benchmark and inventoryWe record what earns traffic today and list every old address that matters.
  3. 03
    Migration planThe redirect map, URL structure, titles, structured data and technical guide, written so your developers can work from it directly.
  4. 04
    HandoverWe walk your developers or agency through the plan and answer questions as they build.
  5. 05
    Pre-launch checkWe test the staging site against the plan and send a pass or fail list.
  6. 06
    LaunchYou launch when the list is clear. We test the redirects from outside on the day.
  7. 07
    AftercareChecks at two weeks, then at 30, 60 and 90 days, against the benchmark.

We do not promise rankings through a migration, and nobody honestly can. What we can do is make sure nothing is lost by accident, and that you know within days, not months, if something slipped.

Questions

Before you move.

When should we involve you?

Before the design is signed off. URLs and page structure are cheapest to get right before anything is built, and the benchmark has to be taken from the old site while it is still live.

We have already launched and traffic has dropped. Can you help?

Yes. We compare the old addresses with the new site, find what broke, and give you the fixes in order of what is worth most. The sooner, the better: Google keeps visiting old addresses for a while after a move.

Do you need access to Search Console?

It helps a lot. Without it, we work from a crawl of the site, its sitemaps and archived copies of its pages, and we tell you what that leaves out.

Who makes the changes?

Your developers or agency build the new site and set up the redirects from our plan. If you do not have a developer, tell us when you get in touch and we will talk through the options.

Which platforms do you work with?

Any. The plan is written for whatever your site is built on, and the redirect map is a list your developers can load into it.

How long will rankings take to settle?

Google says to expect temporary fluctuation during a move, and that for a medium-sized site it can take a few weeks or more before the new addresses show. A clean migration keeps that period short; nobody can promise it will be zero.

How long should the redirects stay?

Google says generally at least a year. We recommend keeping them for as long as you own the old addresses.

We are an agency migrating a client’s site.

We have a version of this service written for you: the launch search handoff, delivered under your name if you want. See the launch search handoff.

Website migration

Moving your website?

Tell us what is changing and when. We will come back with what is at risk, what to protect first, and how we would run it.

  1. 01
    The one issue holding the site backNot a list of everything a crawler can flag.
  2. 02
    The evidence behind itWhat we saw, where, and the source we checked it against.
  3. 03
    A next step sized to the problemSometimes a small fix. Sometimes no project at all.
Where every engagement startsPlan your migration
  • Reviewed personally by our team
  • A reply within one business day, usually
  • By email. A call only if you want one