SEO migration: maintain your top search engine positions

What is a SEO migration?

The moment you make a lot of structural changes within your website, this also changes the situation for Google. Helping Google understand this situation We call SEO migration. Structural changes and so different types of migrations that fall under here are, for example:

• Changing domain name (from domain.com to domain.co.uk)
• Change in terms of code and/or design
• Change of CMS (from WordPress to Magento)
• Change in URL structure
• Combinations of the above

What's the risk if you don't help Google make changes?

Let's keep as much as possible to the old

Every SEO specialist ever

The above quote does speak to situations we experience, because just like humans, search engines can't handle change very well either. So if you're going to change your website in terms of situation anyway, you'd better help Google understand this as much as possible. The moment you don't help Google and don't do a SEO migration, your good positions in Google disappear like snow in the sun. For many organisations and brands, the website or webshop is an important onder part of the business and then losing organic traffic hurts the bottom line tremendously.

In terms of visibility, a website migration without SEO help looks like this:

More than 13,000 matching search terms to a website. And after the new website went live, a drop to 4,000 matching search terms

The above situations are not exceptional; we are often approached by organisations that shoot into panic mode a few weeks after going live because organic traffic is gone.

The SEO migration plan: the steps to take in migration

But what is the ideal way to help Google understand your migration? And what steps should you take to do so as a website owner or SEO specialist? We list the steps of the SEO migration plan for you:

Phase 1: preparation and planning (pre-migration)

We always recommend including SEO in the plans for a new website or changing website, but it is not necessarily necessary. Think, for example, about discussing a new structure or taking stock of which content should be brought to the new situation. However, making preparations for a SEO migration is necessary. The onder parts in this preparation and planning phase are:

• Agreeing a date for going live, preferably in the off-season in terms of website business
• Doing a comprehensive baseline measurement of search term positions of current search terms
• Analysing all existing backlinks
• Performing a comprehensive crawl of the current website with as much input as possible from sources that know URLs from your website (Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, etc.)
• Creating a URL summary from the crawl with any SEO value per URL added to it
• Creating a URL model of the new website + possibly arranging access to a test environment

No website migration is the same, but these are generally the most important steps in this phase. Obviously, it is also very important to make good planning agreements together (website owner, SEO specialist and web builder).

Phase 2: test phase (pre-migration)

This is the phase before going live with the new website or changing website. This phase is about doing everything you can to make sure Google understands as much as possible which page is moving to a new page. The onder parts of this phase are:

• Creating a redirect file for URLs that change: link old URLs from the URL overview to new URLs from your URL model
• Adjusting the internal links in the test environment based on URLs that are going to change
• Auditing the test environment (checking for crawlability and indexability, as well as SEO elements such as text, meta titles, etc.)
• Fixing a good 404 page
• Fixing a new XML Sitemap and preferably also an 'old' XML Sitemap containing all the changing old URLs
• Testing your redirect file in the test environment. Check that all redirects work and point to the correct destination URL
• Informing other stakeholders. For example, share the redirect file with your Google Ads agency and email marketing/automation agency

Phase 3: going live (post migration)

The moment to press the button has arrived. Time to show everyone your new website! This phase consists of the following onder parts:

• Agreeing with the entire project team on when to go live (preferably not on a Friday). And whether it will be a soft launch (going live for a selection of users) or hard launch (going live for everyone)
• Checking Robots.txt and X-robots or Meta robots (noindex, nofollow)
• Submitting XML Sitemaps in Search Console
• Crawling all old URLs known from previous crawls
• Crawling the new website (often we do the above steps in one)
• Doing a 'Change of Address' in Search Console (only when migrating from domain to domain)

Something goes wrong in all SEO migrations, even those that go completely by the book. It is always important to consider SEO capacity and development capacity at this stage

Phase 4: after going live (post migration)

This phase is strongly related to phase 3 and runs imperceptibly into it. Because apart from the fact that SEO is a continuous process, you can also adjust your SEO migration in this phase. This phase consists of the following onder parts:

• Fixing (301 redirecting) all 404s that come in from the crawl or in Google Analytics and Search Console
• Briefing the developer on bugs (technical SEO issues) that come out of the crawls of the live environment
• Keeping an eye on the Index coverage report in Search Console
• Monitoring results (rank tracking, Google Analytics, Search Console, etc.)
• Updating important backlinks if you have contact with the owners of the websites on which they can be found
• Making a plan on how you will further up the SEO positions after going live

Examples of our SEO migrations from practice

We at Onder do a lot of SEO migrations, from large to small and complicated to uncluttered. We highlight three migrations of recent times

Example 1: Daka

Daka is a chain of sports shops + a fairly large webshop. They specialise in many product groups and are particularly strong in winter sports items. Daka's marketing team knocked on our door to onder support in the webshop migration that was upcoming.

• Platform migration from Xsarus TableTop to Magento2
• Many changes in URL structure + a changing product URL structure
• Redesign + code changes
• Many URLs: before going live the number was in the tens of thousands

Daka's new situation was so different that Google did struggle with it at first, but after adjusting with technical changes and content additions, we had an upward trend again, just in time for the post pandemic winter sports season of early 2022.

Example 2: Industore

Industore is a technical wholesaler with a sizeable webshop. Industore specialises in a number of niche markets and is therefore particularly findable on technical products. Organic traffic is important for Industore.

• Platform migration from a custom platform to Opencart
• Few changes in URL structure
• Code changes and many technical SEO improvements

Industore was also a typical migration by the book: all onder parts were tightly finished by ourselves, Industore and the connected developer. Still, you see a small dip after going live followed by a nice increase in organic visibility.

Example 3: Internetvergelijk.nl

Internetvergelijk.nl is a comparison platform for internet, television and telephone subscriptions. The platform relies heavily on organic traffic and was and is highly findable on a variety of search terms that match the target audience's orientation phase.

• Changes in URL structure during this migration
• Redesign + layout changes
• Transition from HTML to JavaScript framework (which we fortunately found out about in time)

The most exciting aspect of migrating Internetvergelijk.nl was the transition from pages in HTML to a JavaScript framework. Fortunately, we were able to test extensively in the test environment with a Prerender solution that still works well. The transition is hardly noticeable in the results, as organic traffic is still rising.

How can we help: our SEO migration services

We see SEO as a craft and the SEO migration service is very much a onder part of that. So we are happy to help you with that. Every website and every situation is different, so no matter how structured we implement migration plans: a SEO migration is tailor-made. We help many customers with SEO migration on the following three variants:

1. A comprehensive SEO migration plan incl. implementation: we take a lot of work off your hands with this, because we create the redirect files ourselves in this case and are leading when it comes to the migration project
2. A SEO migration plan based on advice: the focus in this variant is on advice: the executive part lies with you as the client. That we brief exactly what needs to be done, check and deliver extensive output based on crawls is of course beyond dispute
3. SEO migration after going live: you can also 'clean up debris' after going live. Website owners regularly knock on the door who have lost some of their traffic by not taking SEO migration into account. Retrospectively, through technical changes and content modifications, a lot can still be saved.

Are you new to the world of search engine optimisation or looking to improve your current strategy? Start with our comprehensive SEO check to make sure you're doing all the basics right. For a thorough evaluation of your website, check out our Live SEO analysis and SEO analysis website. If you have questions about specific terms. 

Can we help your organisation with this? Then get in touch with us!

Getting started with a SEO migration yourself: the checklist

We are happy to share our knowledge with you. So would you like to get started yourself with a SEO migration checklist and follow our step-by-step plan as you see fit? Then download the SEO website migration checklist from Onder. Success not guaranteed of course 🙂