What comes to mind first when you hear ‘migration’: birds or SEO? If you only thought of birds, we’re about to blow your mind by introducing you to site migration for SEO purposes. But before we fly the coop, our winged friends can help us explain website migration in a way you may not expect!

Despite what the name implies, site migration does not only cover moving a site from one location to another. It covers a whole gaggle of tactics used to improve site performance. Let us explain using our feathered friends one more time.

Website migration (in bird terms) can mean:

• Moving your nest from one tree to another (a domain change)
• Reconstructing your nest with the newest twigs and sticks (a website refresh)
• Building an entirely new nest (a website re-launch)
• Moving your belongings to a new nest (a website platform change, i.e. from WordPress to Webflow CMS)

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Keep these birds in mind as we fly through the best practices for migrating to a new SEO site, review the website migration checklist, and talk about website migration timing!

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What is SEO site migration?

Site migration is a loose term used in the SEO industry to broadly define any change to a website that significantly impacts search engine visibility. Any time significant changes are made to a website’s structure, domain, or content management system, it sends a signal to search engines, impacting search engine performance.

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What is an example of site migration in SEO?

Various website migration projects range from minor content updates to extensive website overhauls. Types of website migration include changes to a website’s:

1. Site location
2. Platform
3. Content
4. Structure
5. Design
6. Any combination of the above or Hybrid migration

Location Changes

Site migration with a location change involves moving a site to a new URL. Changing a URL covers more than a simple domain change. Location changes include

• Protocol change: moving from HTTP: to HTTPS:
• Subdomain change: introducing a new subdomain, such as a mobile subdomain
• Domain name change: changing your domain name after a rebrand or name change
• Top-level domain name change: introducing an international site such as .co.uk
• Domain structure changes: changing the site structure in a way that impacts URL structure

Platform Changes

Site migration due to a platform change means moving a website to a new platform or content management system, for example, moving a blog from Blogger to WordPress. It can also mean upgrading the platform version.

Content Changes

Site migration with content changes includes rewriting, combining, and pruning existing content to improve organic search visibility. 

Structural Changes

Site migration due to structural changes affects site taxonomy, such as site navigation and internal linking.

Design Changes

Site migration with design changes includes redesigning the entire site or making significant changes to parts and pieces like code or copy that affect the user experience.

Hybrid Site Migration

Hybrid site migration is a website migration project that involves any combination of the different types of website migration. A hybrid site migration is our most commonly recommended website migration project.

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Why do websites migrate?

If you want to improve your site’s performance,  site migration is a potential solution. Before you panic–remember that site migration doesn’t always mean a complete overhaul. There are website migration tactics that can be completed quickly, and there are website migration projects that require more effort and time.

The reason for site migration is to improve overall site performance. As co-founder and CCO Maddie Richardson explains,

“The technical landscape moves so quickly. The digital landscape moves so quickly. The website you built 3-5 years ago is likely not the home you want to live in moving forward to scale for the next several years.” 

Site migration alleviates poor site performance. We recommend website migration projects when clients are experiencing:

• Ineffective SEO and low-ranking pages
• Site design that no longer reflects the current brand
• Undefined user journey
• Messaging problems

Rebrands and the desire for a website redesign drive most of the website migration project requests we receive.

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What are the steps in a website migration?

Because there are many different types of website migration projects, the specific steps in a site migration will vary, though the general website migration checklist is the same. 

Step 1: Planning

The first step in site migration is to define the website migration scope. You must outline your goals and objectives for the site because the website migration project recommendation may change based on your specific wants.

The planning stage of the website migration checklist is the perfect time to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your site as it impacts the type of site migration recommended. Maddie Richardson chimes in with this advice to jumpstart your brainstorming:

“Define what you mean when you say you want a site migration. Is it that you want to adjust your user journey, design, or technical optimization only? Clearly define your wants, goals, and wishlist for your site. It helps when you know what you want from a website migration project. What inspired the change and list of wants? This can also inform recommendations, timeline, and next steps in the process.”

On our list of best practices for migrating to a new SEO site is clearly defining what you want. Once you’ve defined your goals and objectives for website migration, a strategy is created, timelines confirmed, and your website migration project is ready to begin.

Step 2: Preparation

The next step in the website migration checklist is to prepare the site changes. Your new site is under development at this stage, and you’ll be reviewing wireframes and staging environments before any site changes are pushed live.

During site migration preparation, your current site performance will be analyzed. This analysis will find issues that need correcting, identify top-performing pages that should remain intact, and create benchmarks from historical performance.

This step in website migration involves many technical aspects of the website migration project, such as redirect implementation, website design, and mapping.

Step 3: Testing

The testing phase is an essential step on the website migration checklist. It involves technical testing on fully implemented test environments that mirror the live user experience. Test environments are not live and should not be visible to search engines.

During the testing phase of site migration, we use partner Deepcrawl to run a series of tests to identify issues before launch. SEO Manager Josh Cummings explained, “We can run these crawls before the site goes live to see if we’ve missed anything or made any mistakes. We aren’t just pushing it out and retroactively trying to fix errors from site migration. We can make sure that it’s 100% accurate and healthy before we push it live.”

Step 4: Launch

It’s time to launch! You’re almost done once you’ve made it to step four of website migration. If significant changes happen, your site may be down temporarily. A maintenance message may be displayed on the site if a temporary outage is anticipated.

Step 5: Review

Once the site migration and the changes are launched, a technical review is completed to identify any unexpected issues. The sooner a problem is rectified, the quicker your performance returns to normal! Site speed, page speed, re-directs, and internal linking are a few technical components checked.

Step 6: Monitor

Ongoing optimization is key for successful website migration. Since Google and other search engines will now crawl and index your site, you can review full site performance using Google Lighthouse or other tools. After the launch of your site migration, we offer at least three technical checks to monitor redirects and other performance results to ensure all is working as it should.

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How long do site migrations take?

You should expect a website migration project to last roughly 3-6 months, though the duration of a site migration depends on the type of website migration. For example, a complete website redesign will take longer than simple content updates.

“Site migration is a long process. Even once it’s pushed live and everything looks good, it’s still a couple of weeks until we know if everything worked properly and the new site is driving traffic,” says SEO Manager Josh Cummings.

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How long does SEO for site migration take before you notice results?

As Maddie Richardson explains,

“There are quick site migrations and long-game website migrations. You should have realistic expectations that there will be some things that we can easily define as quick wins. Still, there is also a long game of building authority, building reputation, and gaining additional backlinks. There is a strategy outside of the actual site migration that can help ease the process.”

After a website migration, it’s normal to experience a significant drop in traffic which can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the extent of the changes made during the site migration. One of the best practices for migrating to a new SEO site is to be patient, especially if you’re embarking on a significant overhaul.

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“Do you want a new location to be hosted, or just content and technical building of where you’re at currently? If it is a completely new domain, you have to be aware that it will be starting from scratch on the SEO side and starting from zero again. You’ll have to wait a good amount of time until you’re back at the standard before site migration.” – Josh Cummings

If you know that you’re ready to improve your site performance to increase sales and revenue, but you’re unsure where to start, we can pilot your flight through site migration. Contact our first-class SEO crew to start your journey.