A Detailed Guide to Website Migration in 2025

There are numerous forms of site migrations. It depends entirely on the nature of the changes that occur.

These usually happen when a website switches to a new URL for one of the reasons listed below:

When switching from HTTP to HTTPS, this is a famous example.

When a company decides to shift one or more ccTLDs into subdomains or subfolders, it's very typical in international SEO. Another common scenario is when a mobile site on a distinct subdomain or subdirectory becomes responsive, and both the desktop and mobile URLs become uniform.

A domain name change is common when a company is rebranding and has to switch from one domain to another

This is typical when a company decides to build an international website and needs to transition from a ccTLD (country code top-level domain) to a gTLD (generic top-level domain) or vice versa, such as from.co.uk to.com or vice versa.

These are site architecture adjustments that typically affect the site's internal linking and URL structure.

Other sorts of migrations are caused by changes to the content, structure, design, or platform of the website.

This is the scenario when a website is upgraded or relocated from one platform/CMS to another. Because of the technical limitations that often occur when switching platforms, re-platforming can result in design and URL changes in some cases. As a result, re-platforming migrations rarely produce a website that looks identical to the prior one.

Depending on the scope, major content modifications like rewrites, consolidation, or pruning can have a significant impact on a site's organic search visibility. The taxonomy, navigation, and internal linking of a website can all be affected by these changes.

With so many possibilities for a site's mobile configuration, partial site migrations can include enabling app indexing, establishing an AMP site, or developing a PWA website, especially when an existing mobile site is being replaced by an app, AMP, or PWA.

Major modifications to the site's taxonomy, which have an impact on on-site navigation, internal linking, and user journeys, are frequently the cause of these issues.

These can range from big design adjustments to a comprehensive website overhaul, which may include considerable media, code, and copy modifications.

In addition to the aforementioned ones, there are a variety of hybrid migration types that can be mixed in almost any way. The greater the number of changes introduced at the same time, the greater the complexity and danger.

Even if making too many changes at once increases the chances of things going wrong, if the migration is well-planned and implemented, it can be more cost-effective in terms of resources.

To begin, make your website migration strategy, which will guide you through the following steps:

Defining the scope and timeframe for your migration.

Choosing who will be in charge of the migration and who will provide support.

For each task, create a website migration checklist.

Creating a budget and a list of necessary resources.

A website transfer process does not happen overnight. It'll take some time. To determine who will lead and assist with this project, your company will need to engage with a variety of team members, ranging from managers to developers to SEOs.

To continue forward with your website upgrades, you'll need to work with your design and development team. This step, for example, will include reviewing wireframes, providing input, and more if you're revamping your website.

If your website migration involves more than just design, your development team should be able to operate independently at this point. Your developers should, for example, concentrate on increasing the overall speed of your site and implementing future mechanisms for sustaining page speed, such as picture compression.

You can go to this step after you've completed your website's designs. Your dedicated SEO consultant will outline and create the technical SEO specs for your site during this step of your website migration strategy, which your development team will then use to launch your site.

These standards may include the following:

• Redirects
• Internal linking
• HTML sitemap
• XML sitemap
• URL structure

Your SEO manager should additionally fulfill the following tasks in addition to these technical SEO specifications:

• Crawl your existing website
• Compare the performance of your current website, including its rankings, speed, and other factors.
• For reference, export the Google Search Console data from your current website.

If your website is undergoing a migration that necessitates redirects, like switching to a new domain name or switching from HTTP to HTTPS, your SEO should develop a document outlining the intended redirects. "www.example.com/service," for example, will redirect to "www.ourbusiness.com/service."

This step can be started before or after the first three. If you're releasing a whole new website design, for example, you may begin testing it as soon as your development team begins working on it.

Make sure your site isn't visible to search engines whenever you begin testing it. When you haven't moved your old site and content to it, you don't want search engines to crawl and index this website. By restricting your website's access to specific IP addresses, you can keep search engines from finding it.

You should use a checklist of elements to test as part of your testing, such as the following:

• Examine the structure of your website.
• Examine the usability of your website.
• Confirm that your page is compatible with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
• Examine the internal links on your site, such as the navigation, header, and footer connections.
• Examine your website's title tags, meta descriptions, copy, and other elements.
• Ensure that your website works properly by loading pages, maintaining a reasonable page speed, and more.
• Examine your txt file, XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, and structured data for any errors.

You should have several team members explore the site for the best results. While one individual may detect a misspelling (maybe due to a branding) on one page, another may see a broken button on another. You can quickly identify and resolve problems when you are employing multiple eyes.

Your company will eventually reach the stage of your website migration plan where the migration is completed. This process could take weeks or even months to complete. Your work up to this point, on the other hand, will assist your firm in launching a successful website migration.

When it comes to moving your website, speed is always crucial. If your transfer necessitates your website going offline, for example, you'll want to minimize any downtime as much as possible. Because search crawlers will notice that your site is offline, it may have an impact on your visibility if it is down for an extended period of time.

After you've finished the initial migration, follow these steps:

• Verify that your robots.txt file does not prevent search engines from accessing your website.
• Check that your redirects are working for your pages, particularly your most important ones.
• Your XML sitemap should be uploaded to your Google Search Console account.

These three steps can assist your company in quickly identifying critical problems, such as mistakenly blocking a search engine with your robots.txt file. They'll also assist you with your website migration, such as uploading your site to Google Search Console.

Your team must continue to monitor your site even after you've completed your website migration process. It's critical to keep an eye on your rankings and traffic throughout the days, weeks, and even months following your site move.

Your website traffic and rankings might alert you to any concerns with your website migration. While it's common to notice a decline in traffic and rankings just after a move, long-term drops could signal a problem with the migration.

For example, failing to set up redirects can have a negative impact on your rankings. Search engines like Google won't be able to notice that you've relocated that page or content to another page unless you use a redirect. When this happens, your website’s rankings suffer, and your traffic suffers as a result.

Monitor your traffic with Google Analytics and check your ranks with Google Search Console. Contact an SEO agency if you're still having issues with your website's migration. An expert and reputable SEO service provider can assess your site and assist your team in determining the cause of your migration troubles.