How to Migrate Your Website Safely

Migrations Are Where Rankings Die

A careless move — new host, new platform, or a redesign with new URLs — can erase years of SEO overnight. With a plan, you keep your rankings and your traffic intact.

Before You Move

• Take a full backup of the old site
• Record your current URLs and top-performing pages
• Note your existing rankings as a baseline

The Critical Step: Redirects

If URLs change, set up 301 redirects from every old address to its new equivalent. This passes your SEO value across and stops visitors hitting dead ends.

Launch Carefully

• Test the new site fully on a staging URL first
• Move during a low-traffic window
• Keep the old site available until the new one is confirmed working

After You Launch

Submit a fresh sitemap, watch Search Console for crawl errors, and check that key pages still rank. Fix broken links and missing redirects quickly — the first week matters most.