Website Migration – Is Your New Website SEO-Ready?
In this post, I’ll take a closer look at one of the most important disciplines in search engine optimization: migration.
But what exactly is migration? Why is a successful migration crucial for your SEO? And how do you go about it in practice?
Read on and learn more.
What is SEO migration?
When building a new website or moving an existing one to a new domain, the term “migration” is used in the context of SEO. In short, migration is the process of ensuring that the SEO value of an existing website is transferred to the new one.
When it comes to SEO, migrating a website isn’t always straightforward. There are many factors to consider before moving a domain. Thorough research, planning, execution, and monitoring are required to ensure that you build and maintain visibility on Google.
Keep in mind that SEO migration is designed to prevent losses in website traffic, rankings, and conversions. By implementing the right migration strategy, you’ll ensure that your website maintains—and ideally improves—its organic rankings and traffic.
What should you consider when migrating?
Your website has most likely spent a long time building its reputation and visibility on Google, which has resulted in people finding you using exactly the right keywords and search terms.
When you change your URLs, content, or simply give your website a complete makeover, you simultaneously alter Google’s perception of your website, which in turn affects the metrics associated with your rankings. The goal of any type of migration is to minimize traffic loss as much as possible.
What happens if you don't perform an SEO migration correctly?
In short, you risk losing your search engine rankings—and with them, traffic, inquiries, and leads.
Below is an example of what can happen if you don't perform your SEO migration correctly. As the graph from Google Analytics shows, organic traffic has dropped dramatically in the period following the migration.
The migration took place in December, and as you can see, traffic began to decline in mid-December.
The reason for the decline was that "no-index" tags had been added to the blog pages, which prevented Google from crawling them. The error was quickly discovered, and in January, traffic began to rise again as Google was allowed to index the pages once more.
It’s a textbook example of what happens when you don’t have your directives under control during a migration—more on that later in this post.
How to: SEO Migration of Your Website
Now you know what a migration is and why it's so important—so far, so good. But how do you actually carry it out? I'll explain that below.
1) Choose a good date
Think about which date works best for you and your website’s traffic. Choose a date and time when traffic and engagement are typically low—and preferably a day when your web team and server administrators are in the office.
Although it may be tempting, avoid scheduling it on a Sunday evening—after all, something could go wrong, and then you won’t be able to communicate and coordinate with other departments.
Aim to migrate in the afternoon or early evening—that way, you can work on troubleshooting in the morning when traffic is light, just in case something goes wrong.
2) Back up!
Remember to back up your current website!
If something were to go wrong, you can always revert to the old version of the site, and hopefully you'll have gained insight into what went wrong so you can fix it the next time.
3) Create a local website to test on
A local—or offline—version of your website is a duplicate version that users cannot access. This is where you can test changes to your new site.
By creating an offline version of your website, you give your web team plenty of time to see how the new content will look on the site, how it performs, and to implement 301 redirects before the live version goes live.
That way, you won't have to worry about broken links and sitemaps after the site goes live.
4) Crawl your site before migration
Use an SEO toollike Screaming Frog to crawl your website and get a complete list of URLs and content. You can use this list to fix errors in your offline version, but also to keep track of old URLs that require redirects.
5) Redirects: Go through the current site—what should be included?
The best thing you can do to keep track of your redirects before and after migration is to create a redirect map. This will ensure that your old URLs have the correct redirects to the new ones and that internal links are also updated. Review your redirect map before and after implementation to make sure your redirects are working properly!
Here is an example of what a redirect map might look like. In this case, it’s a small website that needs to be migrated—so the list of redirects is fairly straightforward. For large websites and online stores that need to be migrated, the document will be much more extensive.
Basically, you need to create a column with the old URLs and a column with the new URLs. The file type will depend on your CMS and the developer’s preference. Most often, it will be a CSV file that you’ll need to upload.
If you use WordPress as your CMS, you can use the “Source URL” and “Target URL” fields to name the columns based on the old and new URLs, respectively. This way, you can upload the CSV file directly into WordPress’s redirect tool—and avoid having to upload your redirects manually.
If you run a Shopify online store, you can do the same thing using the “Redirect from” and “Redirect to” commands.
6) Create a custom 404 page
It’s always possible that some redirects might slip through the cracks or some links might break when the new site goes live. In that case, it would be a good idea to create an “engaging” 404 page that helps visitors find their way back to the home page instead. If there isn’t a 404 page set up, the user will land on a blank page where they can’t navigate to the homepage—and then the user will most likely leave your website, resulting in a higher bounce rate.
Below, you can see the 404 page on the website of SEO giant Moz. In addition to being creative, it also allows you to continue navigating the site.
7) Update My Business, Bing Places, and other sites with a link to the website
If you need to update your entire domain—and if there are any changes to your domain name—be sure to update your Google My Business profile and any other places where your website’s URL might appear.
If you have multiple offices with multiple Google My Business profiles, be sure to update them as well—especially if each location has its own URL, such as: www.ditdomæne.dk/dinlokation or yourlocation.yourdomain.dk.
Remember that Google My Business is a powerful local ranking factor!
8) Update the sitemap
Once you’ve got all your new URLs organized, it’s a good idea to create a new sitemap—or update the old one—which you can link to your website as follows. Your sitemap will usually be located at the web address www.ditdomæne.dk/sitemap.xml or www.ditdomæne.dk/sitemap_index.xml.
Next, upload your new sitemap to Google Search Console to help the search engine understand the changes that have been made to your new website. This will also help Google index the new site more quickly.
READ: What is a sitemap?
9) Notify Search Console that you are changing domains
Search Console has another handy feature: the Change of Address feature, which lets Google know that you've changed your domain and where the new domain can be found. You should do this as soon as you've changed your domain.
10) Update robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells various search engine crawlers which pages or files on the website should or should not be crawled—the file is typically located at www.ditdomæne.dk/robots.txt (see, for example, Nike’s robots.txt file, which has a fun feature if you scroll down a bit).
Remember to update the document so Google knows which parts of the website to crawl. You’ll also want to add the new sitemap here so Google and other search engines can find it more easily.
11) Don't delete the old domain!
If you change your domain, keep the old one so you can ensure that all backlinks pointing to that domain are redirected properly! If you let go of the domain, others may be able to take it over, and you could lose all your backlinks as a result.
12) Run a crawl on the offline server, and when the page goes live
Both before and after the new site goes live, you should conduct an SEO audit to ensure that all pages, content, links, tags, and other elements are in place.
SEO Audit Checklist
Use Screaming Frog to run a crawl to check:
- 4xx pages
- 3xx pages
- Broken images/videos
- Missing meta tags
- Duplicate content
- No canonical tags or incorrect canonical tags
- Pages with “no index.”
Check Google Analytics
- Check that Analytics and Tag Manager are installed correctly on the website and are actually collecting data
- Mark dates in Analytics using annotations.
Test the page on a mobile device
- Grab your phone and try out the website! Make sure the layout, design, and features all work properly. You might also want to use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.
Check that the integrations are working
- Not only Analytics and Tag Manager, but also CRM, marketing integrations, e-commerce, etc.
Is your social media up to date?
- Go to all your social media profiles and check that all the links point to the right place
Would you like us to help you with your SEO migration?
Would you like help with SEO and migration? To sum it up, SEO migration is certainly no easy task. It takes time and requires detailed research and planning to succeed. It can be challenging to make sense of it all, which is why we’re here to lend you a helping hand.
Do you need advice from an experienced SEO agency that can help you complete your migration successfully? Send us an email today at seo@amplify.dk or call us at 70 60 50 28!
FAQ - Website Migration
Does migrating a website affect my SEO?
What is SEO website migration?
If you're launching a new website or moving an existing one to a new domain, you're undertaking a migration. An SEO migration involves carrying out the migration without losing valuable rankings on Google.
Could I ruin my SEO by migrating?
Yes, unfortunately, you can. That’s why it’s a good idea to have an SEO agency on hand when you begin your SEO migration.
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