Site Migration Workflow

Comprehensive migration strategy development including scope definition, risk assessment, timeline planning, and stakeholder alignment. Establish success metrics and rollback procedures.

• Define migration scope and objectives
• Conduct pre-migration SEO audit
• Identify high-value pages and conversion paths
• Document current rankings and traffic baselines
• Create detailed migration timeline
• Establish success metrics and KPIs
• Define rollback procedures and contingency plans
• Coordinate with development and stakeholder teams

Complete inventory of all existing content, assets, and URLs. Categorize pages by priority, identify content to migrate, consolidate, or retire. Map content hierarchy and relationships.

• Crawl entire site to inventory all URLs
• Categorize content by type and priority
• Identify duplicate and thin content
• Audit media assets (images, videos, PDFs)
• Document content relationships and dependencies
• Identify pages to migrate, consolidate, or retire
• Map content hierarchy and taxonomy
• Review and update metadata for all pages

Create comprehensive URL mapping spreadsheet with 1:1 redirects for every URL. Implement 301 redirects, handle edge cases, and validate redirect chains. Ensure zero broken links.

• Create complete URL mapping spreadsheet
• Map old URLs to new URL structure
• Implement 301 redirects for all moved content
• Handle redirects for consolidated content
• Set up 410 responses for retired content
• Identify and fix redirect chains
• Validate all redirects with multiple tools
• Test redirect performance and response times

Execute the technical migration including content transfer, new site setup, server configuration, and performance optimization. Migrate databases, implement new architecture, and ensure technical SEO elements are preserved.

• Set up staging environment for testing
• Migrate content to new platform/structure
• Configure server and hosting environment
• Implement technical SEO requirements
• Set up SSL certificates and HTTPS
• Configure CDN and caching layers
• Migrate and optimize databases
• Test functionality across all pages and features

Ensure all SEO elements are properly migrated and preserved. Verify meta tags, structured data, internal linking, XML sitemaps, and robots.txt. Maintain or improve SEO strength throughout migration.

• Migrate and verify all meta tags (titles, descriptions)
• Transfer and validate structured data markup
• Preserve internal linking structure and anchor text
• Update and submit XML sitemaps
• Configure robots.txt for new structure
• Verify canonical tags implementation
• Maintain or improve page speed and Core Web Vitals
• Test mobile-first indexing compatibility

Intensive monitoring period following launch to catch and fix any issues immediately. Track rankings, traffic, indexation, and technical health. Make rapid adjustments as needed.

• Monitor Google Search Console for errors
• Track ranking changes for target keywords
• Monitor organic traffic and conversion rates
• Verify indexation of migrated pages
• Check for crawl errors and 404s
• Monitor redirect performance and coverage
• Test all critical user journeys and conversions
• Document lessons learned and optimization opportunities