Website Migration SEO Checklist
- Pre Migration
- Launch Day
- Post Migration
- Is the migration worth it?
- Does the website have established search engine traffic?
- Are there high traffic pages that may be affected?
- How would this migration affect the back link profile of the website?
- What are the SEO benefits after the migration?
- What are the SEO risks from this migration?
- Will there be code/architecture changes caused by the migration?
- Etc.
- Identify growth opportunities and risks
- Set realistic objectives and goals
- Prepare the project plan
- Review prototypes and wireframes (if there are changes)
- Purchase and setup SSL for new domain (if domain is changing, or SSL migration is your goal)
- Setup hosting for the new domain (if different from current domain)
- Prepare the SEO specifications (there are always SEO implications, make sure to cover all the grounds)
- Identify priority pages (you need to make sure your top traffic pages are safe)
- Benchmark analytics/SEO traffic/backlinks
- Review staging environment setup (if you have one)
- Review page templates (if there are changes)
- Review content
- Review all internal links
- Review technical SEO
- Crawl time issues
- Cloaking checks
- Javascript crawling
- Mobile optimization
- Structured data
- Pagination(s) / prev/next meta tags
- 404 pages
- Sitemap files
- Hreflang (if any)
- Site speed checks
- Check redirects
- Review analytics setup
- Generate a full content inventory
- CDN Configuration Preparation
- Ads & 3rd-Party Extension Preparation
- Google Tag Manager
- Adobe Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- Etc.
- Add new domain to Google search console and verify
- Spot check search engine crawling
- Old URL redirects
- New URLs
- Internal links
- Robots.txt
- Server responses
- Canonical tags
- Noindex/indexes
- Cloaking checks
- Google Search Console
- Request indexing of the new site
- Carry out site change in search console
- Spot check URLs for crawling
- Check and update URL parameters
- Submit and test sitemap XML files
- Configure URL parameters
- Crawl using bots
- Create a new content inventory
- Compare new inventory to old inventory
- Check to make sure legacy redirects were not lost
- Check to ensure no long redirect chains
- Compare old and new meta data comparison
- Titles
- Descriptions
- Headings
- OG tags
- Etc.
- Update all social media links
- Update all Ads & 3rd-Party Extensions
- Google Tag Manager
- Adobe Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- Etc.
- Check for any third party software and update the domains
- Regularly check the index coverage report
- Monitor sitemap indexation levels
- Keep an eye on crawl stats reports
- Download and review crawl errors
- Fix any errors ASAP
- Look out for mobile usability issues
- Track top keywords daily
- Keep an eye on performance reports
- Mobile speed
- Desktop speed
- Bounce rate
- Conversion report
- Update all social media links
- Update all Ads & 3rd-Party Extensions
- Google Tag Manager
- Adobe Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- Etc.
- Check for any third party software and update the domains
Checklist for Website Migration
Any website migration project comes with it’s challenges and risks, especially with search engine optimization. I have compiled this checklist to make it easier for SEO professionals to prepare for a website migration.
Whether you are migrating from HTTP to HTTPS, non-www to www (or vice versa) or to a completely new domain, I hope this list will come in handy.
Website Migration Process
When someone tells me about website migration, I prepare for 3 stages:
These are the stages and allow the SEO specialist to prepare for it properly.