Guide
The Process of Site Migration
There are many reasons a site migration may be necessary: moving to a new CMS for scaling, changing hosting providers, changing domains, or a combination of these. If it’s not handled correctly, migrations can create downtime, lost rankings, broken tracking, and a messy crawl/indexing situation.
- Preserve rankings and traffic
- Prevent broken URLs and lost redirects
- Maintain tracking, ads, and social previews
- Ensure Google can crawl and index the new site cleanly
A good migration is mostly planning — and verification after launch.
Through our combined years in the industry, we’ve helped clients navigate site migrations and have seen a lot of different issues pop up.
Some Things to Watch Out for in a Site Migration
- Changes to URL structure
- Maintaining existing redirects
- Creating new redirects
- Changes in site speed
- Correct canonical tags
- Broken images
- Keeping 3rd party tracking working
- Social media interaction
- Ads being displayed correctly
- Valid robots.txt and .htaccess files
A Simple Migration Framework
The safest migrations follow the same rhythm: prepare → migrate → verify → monitor.
Plan
- Inventory top pages + current URLs
- Build a redirect map (old → new)
- Confirm analytics + tag requirements
- Check robots.txt, canonicals, sitemap setup
Migrate
- Move CMS/hosting/domain with minimal downtime
- Preserve internal links where possible
- Implement redirects and canonical rules
- Validate HTTPS + server responses
Verify & Monitor
- Test critical pages, forms, and tracking
- Run crawl checks and fix broken links/images
- Watch indexing + rankings post-launch
- Clean up leftover old URL references
Something as simple as switching from HTTP to HTTPS can wreak havoc on a website if you don’t have a plan in place. 201 Creative can help you develop that plan using our 46-point Site Migration Checklist.
Once your migration plan is established, we can either perform the work for you, or be an available resource for your tech department to lean on.
After the migration is complete and the “new” site is live, we can perform an audit to identify problems that may have arisen from the migration. We typically find references to old URLs in background code, or unforeseen consequences like increased bounce rate or a drop in rankings. We’ll then help you solve those issues.
A site migration can be a daunting task — but 201 Creative can walk you through it and make sure you come out the other side unscathed.
Want to Boost Your Business Today?
Schedule a complimentary consultation and we’ll help you plan (or execute) your migration the right way.
