This document discusses best practices for website migrations. It covers 10 key steps: 1) planning, 2) pre-migration preparation, 3) pre-migration testing, 4) redirect planning, 5) launch, 6) post-migration review, 7) post-migration follow up, 8) post-migration monitoring, 9) evaluating success, and 10) types of migrations. For each step, it provides guidance on important technical SEO tasks like setting up analytics, testing redirects and structured data, and ensuring the new site is properly indexed. The overall message is that careful planning, testing and post-launch monitoring are essential to a successful migration.

1. Site Migrations
With Nik Ranger

2. Quick intro:
● Senior technical SEO at Dejan Marketing
● Head of SEO Collective, a non-profit SEO
educational and networking organisation
● Official Judge for SEMrush Awards Australia
● Co-author of two books for Majestic and Search
Engine Journal
● Brand ambassador for Rank Ranger
● Winner of SEMrush best agency in Australia,
APAC and at the Global Search Awards
● Ranked #87 of 202 Top SEO Experts You Should
Be Following by Search Engine Journal
@nikrangerseo
Follow me:

4. Contents
Site Migrations 101
1. What is a website migration /
types of site migrations?
2. Why website migrations fail
3. Getting Started: Planning
4. Pre-migration preparation
5. Pre-migration testing
6. Redirect plan
7. Launch
8. Post-migration review
9. Post migration follow-up
10. Post-migration monitoring
11. Evaluating the success of your
website migration

5. Types of site migrations
● Changing URLs
● Merging content:
● Website redesign launch
● Changing your website architecture
and/or URL structure:

6. Types of site migrations
● Switching from HTTP to HTTPS:
● Switching domain names: you’re
changing your domain name.
● Merging websites:

7. Types of site migrations
● Switching to a new CMS
● Updating platform
● Switching hosting providers

8. Why website
migrations fail (a
short list)
1. Launching without consulting
their SEO
2. Letting the dev team handle
the migration
3. Not understanding the risks
involved in changing URL
structure, content, meta data
4. Poor planning
5. A lack of knowledge by the
parties involved
6. Lack of communication
● Only 10% redirected
● No sitemap
● No hreflang
● Missing subdirectory
structure layout for US and
UK markets
Merging 3 international subdomains to 1 TLD - gone horribly wrong.
● Missing metadata
● Not server side rendered
● No schema
● js redirects
● IP auto redirects
● Text with 404 on 200 pages

9. Client wants to launch new eComm site 2 weeks before black
friday … to help black friday sales

11. The website migration process

12. Getting Started:
Planning
1

13. Getting Started:
Planning
What are the clients migration goals?
What is the business workflow?
Who’s your target audience/s?
Do you have plans to change the URLs?
Are you keeping the titles and meta descriptions
the same or plan to change?
Are there any plans to get rid of pages/content in
the migration?
Or add new pages?
Are there any kind of technical considerations we
should know about in the lead up to this migration?
When are you planning to launch?
1

14. Getting Started:
Planning
1
Take everything with
a grain of salt sugar

15. Getting Started:
Planning - crawl crawl crawl
1

16. Pre-migration preparation:
Analytics & Tracking Setup
1. Google Search Console Setup & Verification (all 4
variations)
2. Google Search Console Setup Sitemap
Assessment
3. Set up GA4
4. GA4 config tag via GTM
5. In GA4 set up data retention settings, enable
enhanced measurements & link properties
6. Edit report chart types in GA4
7. Set up custom data dimensions and metrics
8. Enable google signals
9. Enable attribution settings
10. Bing Webmaster Tools Setup & Verification
11. Bing Webmaster Sitemap Assessment
2

17. Pre-migration preparation:
Keywords and Content
1. Keyword Research
2. Review of new
wireframes
3. Review proposed
wireframe (IA) to
highlight any potential
issues
4. Review current
metadata on key pages
and make amendments
where necessary
2

18. Pre-migration testing:
Set up signals &
Internal Links
HTTP to HTTPS & WWW vs NON-WWW
Live site XML sitemap & robots.txt check
Check redirect chains - Current Live Site
Canonical Tag Audit:
- Canonical URL trailing slash
- Canonical URL lowercase/uppercase
- Configure canonical URLs/tags
Identify current issues with 404 errors
Find orphan pages
Review internal linking to key pages across the website
Review of the new main navigation
Provide recommendations on faceted navigation
2

19. Pre-migration testing:
Structured Data and
Images
Review existing schema markup for
errors / incorrect association,
markup
Provide structured data templates
to be added across key page
templates
Audit all images
Develop image naming strategy
Name all images according to
strategy
2

20. Pre-migration testing:
International SEO
Specify your target country and/or region with an
international-friendly URL structure (country
targeting)
Establish which language your pages are targeting
with the use of language tags (language targeting)
Create and maintain content in your target users
language(s)
Measure brand vs. non-brand organic sessions
In GA, set up filtered views for each country, region
or market as is relevant to your strategic targeting
In GA, set up global overview that includes all of the
priority countries and regions which are aggregated
Pop up redirects, country selection prompt or
landing page
2

21. Pre-migration testing
Export list of backlink volumes
for all pages
Determine most valuable links
Benchmark pagespeed
Ensure staging site is not
indexed
Track important keywords to
retain rankings for
Test Staging Site Rendering
2

22. Redirect plan
Check /ask how redirects are currently
implemented and export list
Get a complete list of the domains and
subdomains that are to be included in the
scope of the migration
Crawl them and place them in one list in a
spreadsheet
Check current 301 redirect list
Create new plan keeping in mind to avoid
redirect chains
3

23. 3
Dynamic redirect checker

24. Pre-Launch Final
Checks
Review new URLs to ensure they are fully optimised
Review full redirect map before implementation
Audit the 301 redirects implemented on the staging site
Review canonicals and meta robots directives
Check pagespeed
Set the meta attributes to index/noindex/follow/nofollow
Check for Open Graph fields for description, URL, image, type,
sitename
Ensure all internal links are up to date
4

25. Launch
1. Don’t launch on a friday or before a
vacation
2. Allow for time to go live (recommended
during user downtime - check GA)
3. HTTP authentication
4. Robots noindex directives (both meta
robots and X-Robots-Tag)
5. Check for any Robots.txt disallows
6. Update DNS Records
5

26. Post-migration
● Review 301 redirects
● Ensure canonicals have
updated from staging site
URLs
● Ensure new site search is
not indexed
● Check for 404s
● Check http and non www
redirects
● Submit site to Google for
indexing (Search Console)
● Submit site to Bing for
indexing (Webmaster
Tools)
6

27. Post-migration
● Ensure all meta data has carried across
● Monitor backlink and internal linking
reports
● Test and Verify XML sitemap & robots.txt
● Set the preferred location of domain (www
or non-www)
● Fetch as google tool in search console to
test rendering of key pages
● Set the international targeting in Search
console
● Test mobile usability
● Daily testing for for week post launch
6

28. Evaluating Success
Of Migration
Were all the goals met?
Was the core functionality
addressed with this site
migration?
What were the most important
things learned?
What can you do to avoid issues
in future?
6

30. Thanks!
Nik Ranger
Senior Technical SEO Specialist at
Dejan Marketing
&
Head Of SEO Collective
https://seocollective.org/