A new website should bring in more enquiries, not fewer. Yet a migration is the moment many Irish businesses quietly lose the search traffic they spent years building: old pages disappear, links break and Google has to work out what happened. This SEO website migration checklist walks through what to do before, during and after the move, in the order we do it on client projects.
What Counts as a Website Migration
Any change that alters how Google finds and understands your pages is a migration in SEO terms. The most common ones are:
- A redesign that changes URLs, for example when pages are merged or renamed.
- A platform change, such as moving from Wix or Squarespace to WordPress, or from WooCommerce to Shopify.
- A domain change, for example from a .com to a .ie address, or after a rebrand.
- A protocol or structure change, such as moving to HTTPS or to a new folder structure.
- A hosting move, where URLs stay the same but the server, DNS and email setup change.
Each type carries different risks, but the principle is the same: every old address that matters needs a clear new home, and Google needs to be able to follow the path. A simple hosting move with unchanged URLs is the lowest risk; a new domain plus a new platform plus a new URL structure, all at once, is the highest.
Before the Migration: Plan and Benchmark
Most migration problems are created weeks before launch, when nobody records what the old site was doing. Start here:
- Benchmark performance. Export the last 12 months of clicks and impressions from Google Search Console and organic traffic from Google Analytics, so you can compare like with like after launch.
- Crawl the old site. Use a crawler to export every URL, status code, title, meta description and canonical tag. Keep this file: it is the source of truth for your redirect map.
- List the pages that matter. Identify pages with organic traffic, external backlinks and conversions. These need the most careful handling.
- Decide the new URL structure early. Keep URLs unchanged wherever possible. Every changed URL is a redirect that has to be built, tested and maintained.
- Protect the staging site. Put the new site behind a password or a noindex tag while it is being built, so Google does not index a half-finished copy.
If a website redesign is part of the move, this is also the moment to decide which content stays, which is merged and which is retired.
Redirect Mapping: The Part That Decides Your Rankings
A redirect map is a spreadsheet with two columns: every old URL and the new URL it should point to. It is the single most important document in any migration.
- Use permanent redirects. Server-side 301 or 308 redirects tell Google the move is permanent[2].
- Map one to one where you can. Each old page should point to its closest equivalent on the new site.
- Do not send everything to the home page. Google advises against redirecting many old URLs to one irrelevant destination such as the home page; it can confuse users and may be treated as a soft 404[1].
- Avoid redirect chains. Old URLs should reach the final page in one hop, not through two or three intermediate redirects. Update existing redirects from previous redesigns too.
- Remember the forgotten URLs. PDFs, image URLs, old campaign landing pages and URLs with tracking parameters often carry links and traffic.
Test the redirects on the staging site before launch, then check every critical redirect again on the live domain straight after deployment, because server rules on staging and production often differ. Our free Bulk URL Checker tests up to 100 URLs at once and shows the status code and full redirect chain for each, so you can paste in the old URLs from your redirect map and spot chains or errors in seconds.
Content, Metadata and Internal Links
Redirects tell Google where a page went. The new page still has to deserve the rankings the old one had.
- Carry across titles and meta descriptions for important pages, or improve them deliberately rather than losing them by accident.
- Keep the content that ranked. A beautiful new page with half the text of the old one often ranks for less.
- Update internal links to point straight at the new URLs instead of relying on redirects.
- Check canonical tags so they reference the new URLs, not the old domain or the staging site.
- Move structured data such as Organization, LocalBusiness, Product and FAQ markup.
- Keep image file names and alt text for images that bring traffic from image search.
- Handle language versions carefully. If your site has English and Irish versions, make sure the hreflang annotations point at the new URLs on both sides.
Launch Day Checklist
- Remove the password or noindex tag from the new site, and check robots.txt does not block it.
- Switch on the redirects and test the most important old URLs on the live domain straight away.
- Check HTTP status codes: important new pages should return 200, old URLs should return a single 301 or 308 redirect, and no key page should be accidentally marked noindex.
- Confirm HTTPS works on every version of the domain, with and without www.
- Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console[4]. Keeping the old sitemap available for a short time can help Google discover the redirects.
- If the domain has changed, verify both domains in Search Console and use the Change of Address tool[3].
- Check DNS carefully during a hosting move. Email records such as MX, SPF and DKIM must move with the site, or email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 can stop arriving.
- Check that analytics, tag manager, forms and conversion tracking fire on the new site.
After Launch: The First Weeks
Google says to expect temporary ranking fluctuations while it recrawls and reindexes a moved site, and that small to medium sites usually take a few weeks for most pages to move[1]. In our experience it is worth monitoring actively for at least the first month or two, and longer for large sites or moves that change several things at once. During that time:
- Watch the Pages report in Search Console for new 404 errors and fix them with additional redirects.
- Compare clicks and impressions for your key pages against the benchmark you exported before launch.
- Crawl the new site again to catch broken internal links and redirect chains you missed.
- Keep the redirects in place for as long as possible. Google recommends generally at least one year[1], and longer is safer.
- Keep the old domain registered, so nobody else can buy it and so the redirects keep working.
Irish Details People Forget
A few steps are easy to miss for businesses in Ireland:
- Google Business Profile. Update the website link on your profile, especially if the domain or the location page URL has changed.
- Directories and citations. Update your website address in Irish business directories, chamber of commerce listings and industry bodies, keeping your name, address, Eircode and phone number consistent.
- .ie domains. If you are moving to or from a .ie address, renew the old domain rather than letting it lapse, so your redirects and email continue to work.
- Legal pages and cookie consent. Move your privacy policy and cookie settings across and check that consent still works before tracking scripts load.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I lose rankings when I migrate my website?
Some movement is normal while Google processes the change. A careful migration with complete redirects, preserved content and fixed internal links gives the best chance of recovering quickly, but nobody can guarantee rankings through a move.
How long does it take to recover after a migration?
For small and medium sites, most pages usually move within a few weeks. Larger sites and moves that combine several changes at once can take longer.
Should I change domain and design at the same time?
If you can, avoid changing everything at once. The more that changes in one go, the harder it is to find the cause if traffic drops. When a combined move is unavoidable, planning and testing the redirects matters even more.
Can I delete the old redirects after a few months?
It is better not to. Google recommends keeping them generally for at least a year, and links from other websites will keep pointing at the old URLs long after that.
Is a hosting move a website migration too?
Yes, even when the URLs stay the same. Downtime, missing DNS records or a slower server can all affect visitors and search engines, and email is often the first thing to break.
Can you handle the migration for us?
Yes. We plan and carry out migrations as part of website redesign projects and moves to platforms like WordPress, and we can check an existing site for SEO problems through our SEO services.