Replatform without losing your rankings.
Migrations are where hard-won rankings quietly disappear. We plan and run yours so they do not.
A website migration, a replatform, redesign or domain move, is the single most common way a business loses its search traffic overnight. We plan the URL mapping, redirects and parity, and monitor the transition, so you keep the rankings and traffic you already have.
Website migrations, in full.
A website migration is any change significant enough to move, rename or rebuild the URLs search engines have already learned to trust. That covers replatforms from one CMS to another, full redesigns, domain changes, HTTP to HTTPS moves, and consolidating several sites into one. On the surface it looks like a build project. Underneath, it is a transfer of every ranking, link and piece of accumulated authority your site has earned, and that transfer is where traffic quietly disappears.
The commercial risk is rarely visible on launch day. A site can go live looking perfect, pass every stakeholder review, and still shed a third of its organic traffic three weeks later because a batch of redirects was missed, a template dropped its internal links, or content that ranked was cut in the name of a cleaner design. By the time the fall shows up in the numbers, the launch team has moved on and the cause is buried under a hundred other changes. That delay is exactly why migrations get treated as a design milestone rather than the SEO event they actually are.
We approach a migration as a controlled transfer with a paper trail, not a hopeful cutover. Every URL that carries rankings or links is mapped and given a destination before anything moves. Redirects are planned one to one, not swept into a homepage catch-all. Content, metadata and internal linking are checked for parity on the new build, and we watch indexation and rankings closely through the fragile first weeks so anything that slips is caught in days, not discovered in a quarterly review. Ideally we are involved before the build starts, because protecting traffic at the planning stage costs a fraction of clawing it back afterwards.
The work suits businesses that cannot afford to gamble the pipeline their current rankings feed. If organic search is a real channel for you, the safest migration is a boring one: nothing surprising in the analytics, no scramble the week after launch, and the authority you spent years building still pointing where it should.
What Website migrations is, and why it matters.
Migrations break SEO because URLs change, redirects are missed, content is dropped and signals are lost, often invisibly until traffic falls weeks later. The damage is preventable with disciplined mapping, a complete redirect strategy, content parity and close monitoring through launch. We have done it before, and we treat it as a controlled process, not a hope.
Website migrations, broken down.
Pre-migration URL and value mapping
Before a single page moves, we inventory every URL and weight it by the rankings, links and traffic it holds. That map is the reference the whole migration is checked against, so nothing valuable is dropped by accident or forgotten in a spreadsheet.
Redirect strategy and mapping
A complete one-to-one redirect plan that sends each old URL to its true equivalent and preserves the authority behind it. We design it as a dedicated discipline in its own right, avoiding the chains, loops and lazy catch-alls that leak the very signals a migration is meant to protect.
Content and metadata parity
The new site has to say what the old one said where it earned rankings. We check body content, titles, descriptions and internal links for parity so a redesign does not quietly delete the pages and text that were doing the work.
Replatform and CMS moves
Moving between platforms changes how URLs, templates and rendering behave, and each of those can break how search engines read the site. We handle the SEO side of the replatform in step with the build team so structure and crawlability survive the switch.
Performance on the new build
A new platform is a fresh chance to get load performance right, or to regress it. We hold Core Web Vitals and rendering to account on the new build so speed and stability are not sacrificed to a heavier design.
Post-launch monitoring and recovery
The first weeks after cutover are where problems surface. We monitor indexation, rankings, crawl errors and redirects closely through the risky window, and if you have already migrated and lost traffic, we diagnose what was missed and recover what is recoverable.
The way we run Website migrations.
Scope the migration and its risk
We establish what is actually changing, URLs, domain, platform or design, and where the exposure sits. That tells us how much of the traffic base is in play and what has to be protected first.
Map every URL before anything moves
We build the full inventory of current URLs with their rankings, links and value, and assign each a destination on the new site. This map becomes the single source of truth for the whole transition.
Design the redirect and parity plan
We author the one-to-one redirect scheme and a parity checklist covering content, metadata and internal links, so the new build is measured against the old one rather than assumed to match.
QA on staging before launch
We check redirects, content parity, crawlability and rendering on the staging environment while there is still time to fix them, not after they are live and costing traffic.
Support the cutover
At launch we verify redirects are firing, the new site is crawlable and indexable, and nothing critical was lost in the switch, working alongside the development team through the go-live.
Monitor and correct through the risky weeks
We watch indexation, rankings and errors closely after launch and act fast on anything that slips, so a small issue is fixed in days rather than found in a later report.
How we run Website migrations.
Pre-migration mapping
Every URL, its rankings and its value mapped before anything moves, so nothing important is lost or forgotten.
Redirect strategy
A complete, one-to-one redirect plan that preserves authority and avoids the chains and loops that leak it.
Parity and QA
Content, metadata, schema and internal links checked for parity on the new site before and after launch.
Post-launch monitoring
Close monitoring of indexation, rankings and errors through the risky first weeks, with fast fixes if anything slips.
What Website migrations puts on your desk.
Migrations run by people who have done it before
Migrations are unforgiving, so they are not a place for a learning curve. Every mapping, redirect plan and QA pass on your migration is done by senior practitioners, four of us, with around forty years of combined agency experience between us. There is no junior quietly working out how redirects behave on your live traffic. We treat a migration as a controlled transfer with a documented map and checklist, because the failures we have seen and fixed all trace back to the same preventable gaps: missed redirects, dropped content and lost internal links.
The people who scope it do it
The senior practitioner who maps your URLs is the one who checks parity and watches the launch. Nothing is handed down a chain where context gets lost.
A method, not a hope
Map, redirect, verify, monitor. The same disciplined sequence on every migration, whether it is a replatform, a domain change or a consolidation, because the principles hold across all of them.
Honest about what is recoverable
If you have already migrated and lost traffic, we tell you plainly what was missed and what can realistically be clawed back, rather than promising a full recovery we cannot guarantee.
Website migrations: common questions.
Will we lose rankings when we migrate?
Not if it is planned properly. Losses come from missed redirects, dropped content and lost signals, all of which disciplined mapping and QA prevent.
When should you be involved?
Before the build, ideally. The cheapest time to protect your traffic is at the planning stage, not after launch when the damage is done.
What kinds of migration do you handle?
Replatforms, redesigns, domain changes, HTTP to HTTPS, and site consolidations. The principles are the same: map, redirect, verify, monitor.
We have already migrated and lost traffic. Can you help?
Yes. We can diagnose what was missed, recover the redirects and signals, and claw back what is recoverable.
How far in advance should you be involved?
Before the build is scoped, ideally. The URL map and redirect plan are cheapest and safest to produce while the new site is still being designed, not retrofitted after launch when the damage is already in the analytics.
Can you work alongside our existing development or design agency?
Yes. We own the SEO side of the migration, the mapping, redirects, parity and monitoring, and hand the developers a clear specification to build against. We are used to slotting into a build team rather than replacing one.
What happens if traffic still drops after launch?
That is exactly what the post-launch monitoring is for. We watch indexation and rankings closely through the first weeks so a slip is caught and corrected in days. A drop found early is usually a redirect or parity issue we can fix quickly.
Do you handle domain changes and site consolidations, not just replatforms?
Yes. Replatforms, redesigns, domain moves, HTTP to HTTPS and merging several sites into one all follow the same discipline: map every URL, redirect one to one, verify parity, then monitor. The context changes, the method does not.
How long does a migration engagement run?
It depends on site size and complexity, but the shape is consistent: mapping and planning before the build, QA on staging, support through cutover, then close monitoring for the weeks that follow launch. The riskiest window is the first few weeks live, so we stay on it through that period.