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We're here with a website migration checklist to help mitigate those risks. We will list the most crucial steps to take when migrating a website. You'll also get advice from SEO experts to make your migration SEO friendly. You can customize the checklist at the bottom based on the needs of your website. First, let's cover some basics in a wide range.
What is Website Migration?
Website migration is a process that involves major changes in a website's structure, design, or location to improve its online visibility/online presence.
Migration involves major changes. It would help if you had a good reason for undertaking this process. (We think you do since you read all the way through.) The most common reasons for migrating a website are:
- Refreshing your Design, Structure, Navigation, or Layout: When your old design needs a makeover. Your navigation and site structure scares crawlers.
- Switching to a New CMS or Framework: This is a good idea if you want to improve your website's performance, security, or functionality.
- Add a Mobile-Friendly Version to Your Website: Mobile versions of websites are important for those who visit on their tablet or smartphone.
- Moving to HTTPS from HTTP: Nobody wants to visit a website after an alarming pop-up warns that browsing is unsafe. Switching from HTTP to HTTPS will help secure your website by encrypting visitor information and blocking scary pop-ups.
- Moving your website to a Different Server: Switching hosts could improve the speed of your site, especially if you're growing. Search engines and visitors alike will appreciate a fast site.
- Changing your Domain Name: You may change your domain as part of rebranding. A site migration is required to change your domain name.
How does Website Migration Affect SEO?
Like any major change, website migration can affect SEO (search engine optimization). Migrating to a new site for the right reasons can make it safer and more enjoyable for visitors. Google prefers websites that are fast and user-friendly. Switching to a faster web host can boost your SEO over time.
Google will have to reindex your site after you move it. It's, therefore, normal to notice a short-term drop in organic traffic. A solid website migration strategy can help you maintain your current search rankings and move in the right direction. When planning your migration, you should include SEO in the mix. We spoke to a few SEO professionals about their experience with site migrations.
Site Migration Checklist: Part 1: Prepare your Plan
Start at the beginning with your plan.
Plan Your Move And Benchmark Your Current Site
Lack of planning is the biggest mistake that people make when migrating websites. Another common reason for failure is to underestimate the amount of work required and the expertise needed. The sooner you start, the better. You will need as much time as you can get. Even the easiest migrations are not always straightforward. Don't undervalue the size of larger projects or how they can grow.
What are your first steps?
- Establish your goals. You should ask yourself why and when you plan to migrate.
- Estimate your timeline. Use our checklist to set milestones.
- Get help. Ensure your team includes webmaster engineers, SEO analysts, UX, and content specialists.
Data Collection
Next, you need to collect the data and analyze it. There are many analytical tools available Check the health of your website with a Site Audit
- Position tracking to monitor rankings
- Content Audit is a way to check the content of your website.
Copy Your Website
You'll need to upload a copy of your site to a new host to test and review all the changes. You should create a test website on a different domain or subdomain to compare the new version to the old one and make necessary changes before launching. Remember to configure the content delivery network for your test site if you use one.
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You Can Now Block Access To Your New Site
Before you complete the migration, you must prevent the search engines from indexing your new website. It could compete with your existing website if it appears on SERPs.
Robots.txt
A robots.txt is a simple way to block search engines. You must remember to allow access to all tools used in the migration.
Password Protection
Authorization rules are another way to block access to a website development. Enter the credentials into the Site Audit settings to allow Site Audit to bypass your restrictions without removing password protection.
No Index Tag
You'll also need to remove the tag, as it prevents crawlers from finding your site. Make a list in advance of all URLs that have no index tag. Site Audit crawlers can still crawl a site with no index set up by selecting the option "Bypass disallow from robots.txt or by robots metatag" under the Bypass website restriction tab.
Check For Errors On Your New Site
You should always check for any technical issues before launching a new version of your website. Set up a Site Audit Project with your test domain in the crawl scope. Look for any critical errors. You'll first need to select your crawl scope settings.
- Click the pencil icon if you want to specify a subdomain.
- You can select the maximum number of pages to be checked. You will need enough to cover the entire website.
- For now, leave the website as your crawl source. This setting allows you to also use Sitemaps, or other list URLs, as the crawl source. This will be useful in future steps of website conversion rate.
Other options can be left as they are, but if you want to bypass restrictions on your website or if the crawlers of your website have been blocked in robots.txt or by a password, enter your credentials. The tool will begin scanning your website for errors when you click "Start Site audit."
The Site Audit Overview shows the website's total number and overall health. The top issues on your website will also be displayed. Start by fixing the issues, then review the reports or click the Issues tab for the complete list. The Crawled Pages tab allows you to check how the bot crawls your site and whether your site architecture works well.
In the future, you can change the settings for your Site Audit campaign by clicking on the gear icon at the top-right corner. You can use a mobile user agent to test if your site works on desktop and mobile. We recommend creating a separate Site Audit for mobile, so you have historical data. This is essential if you're implementing a mobile-friendly version of your website.
You can change the user agent selected in the settings for a test website and run the campaign again. Please be aware that it is not practical to compare crawls using different settings, nor will you be able to monitor progress since you will be using mixed historical data.
Google Can Access Your New Site
Add the temporary hostname for your test subdomain in Search Console. Then, use the coverage report to ensure that Googlebot can access your website. This will ensure that JavaScript is crawled, indexed, and indexed.
You will need to grant Googlebot access to the test site temporarily. After you have ensured that your test site is indexable, we recommend restricting access to the site. Site Audit's crawler is similar to Googlebot. So, inspect the Crawlability Report to see if it finds any pages that are not indexable or if the crawl budget is wasted.
Google May Have Penalized Your Newly Acquired Domain
You should check the manual action history of a domain you recently purchased. Visit the Manual Actions Report in Search Console and check the history of manual actions against the domain. If there are any current issues, you can fix them by following Google's suggestions.
Check DNS TTL Values
Computers need IP addresses to serve websites, even though most visitors enter using your site name rather than the IP address. The domain naming system, or DNS, converts site names to IP addresses. Your website will be down if you need to migrate your website, and this requires a new IP address.
You can adjust the TTL values for the DNS entries to minimize downtime. TTL values are an expiration date that specifies the length of time DNS records will be kept. Reduce the TTL before migration to speed up DNS changes. After migration, you can reset the values.
Check the Server Performance
Googlebot must recrawl the new website. It is in your best interests to do this as soon as possible. If your server response is slow, Googlebot's crawling rate will be slowed. It will then take longer to re-crawl the entire website. No matter how well-optimized your website is, it will negatively impact its overall performance.
Use the Page (HTML Load Speed) widget in the Site Audit Tool to ensure that all pages on your site load quickly. Every migration project starts with a complete website audit. You can then use this benchmark to ensure that the migration is on track and your visibility remains high.
Copy the GA Tracking Code to your New Site
You must copy the GA tracking code and paste it into your new website.
Read More: 5 On-Page Techniques To Move Up On Search Engine Rankings
Site Migration Checklist: Part 2: Mapping URLs
You'll then need to map URLs. It's important to keep a list of all the URLs you currently have so that they can be matched up with those after the move. It would be best if you also redirected your URLs correctly, or else you may face serious SEO consequences. There are a variety of tools that can be used to smoothen out any kinks. Google Search Console will help you index your pages. Site Audit allows you to easily see any error codes on your site.
Create a List of your Current Urls
You'll first need to make a list with all the URLs for your current site and then match those URLs up with the new URLs. Find the most important pages on your website, both in terms of traffic and broken links. Start by checking your sitemaps to see if the information is up-to-date. Gather all the valuable content you wish to have on your site (including video and images).
You can use different resources:
- Use the Search Console to find all index pages
- Google Analytics allows you to find out which pages are receiving traffic.
- Site Audit allows you to filter out specific pages based on their status code.
- Backlink Analytics will show you the pages on your website that have backlinks.
- With Position Tracking, you can find out which pages are ranking high on your website.
To simplify future actions, combining all the data in one file is recommended. Check that your list does not contain duplicate URLs.
Search For Urls That Require Redirects
You should check your old URLs against the new URLs to determine if you need a 301 redirect. Your new pages won't get the same traffic or PageRank as the old ones, negatively affecting your search engine ranking. The site was Belgian, and it redirected you to Dutch, French, or English versions. Still, all of them were, like, "question mark lang" is, FR, or whatever. They forgot to redirect these pages.
As a result, they would redirect all the pages that came out of a spider but not the ones to which users had actually linked. Just fixing these pages solved the issue, and within a couple of weeks, they were back in their ranking. To create redirects, you should always consider all pages that bring traffic and rank. Site Audit can be used to check if the new site has all of your desired pages. Bypass website restrictions are a good option to choose if you are having trouble accessing your site because of a password or robots.txt. Create a new site audit project or use the existing one if you do not have one.
- Upload a CSV with a list of URLs that you want to verify. Use the URLs in the Crawl Source settings. Site Audit will use the domain of a subdomain for your test site.
- The Crawl Limit can be changed in Settings (gear icon), -> Limit of pages checked.
- Search "4xx" in the Issues tab to find the URLs for pages that are not available on your test website.
- Export the data in order to save a list of URLs that need redirection.
Create a 301 Redirect Map
You'll have to fix the missing URLs once you've mapped your old and your new website URLs and identified which pages you are missing. You need to identify a destination relevant to each page that you have missing on your site in order to receive Search engine optimization traffic referrals from existing links pointing at those pages. Use a 301 server-side redirect when creating redirects. This will ensure that old URLs are excluded from indexing and redirects continue to work even if you cancel hosting.
Another common mistake is people thinking they can remove redirects once Google has detected the new URL or domain. This is something you should never do. A 301 redirection is a permanent redirection. It must stay in that location.
That's how I see it. Google will never forget, so make sure to redirect all your links. Avoid double-hops when redirecting. If there are old redirects that now go to the HTTPS version, which redirects back to an HTTP version that does whatever, then make it just one hop and a 301 redirect... Please don't remove them once your pages have been moved.
Do not redirect all your pages onto a single webpage. It's common for people to redirect their main page, but it is a bad practice. When you expect a landing page or article, landing on the homepage confuses users and can hurt rankings.
Redirecting to the category or main page can be a good option in some cases. However, try to limit these. It is best to create a page with relevant content or find the most relevant web page.
If you do not need a new webpage, we recommend changing the server response for a broken page to 410. The 410 code indicates that the page has been permanently removed and instructs search engine bots not to index the link. Redirects that are not done carefully can lead to dead ends, redirect chains, and loops. You can always run your Site Audit again to see if it worked.
Update All URLs
Update all URL details before starting the migration.
- Update the HTML or Sitemap file with annotations. Each URL must have a rel= "canonical" that is self-referential. Update the annotations if your website has multilingual pages. Update the rel-alternate media annotations if you have a mobile website.
- Update all internal hyperlinks on the new site and replace all old URLs with the new URLs.
- List the websites that link to your content, and create separate Sitemaps for old and new URLs. They will help you in future steps to move your website.
Site Migration Checklist: Part 3: Beginning the Migration
This is the moment when you will actually migrate your site. Take a deep breath. Your strong plan for website migration should make the process go smoothly. It is important to test and test again after implementing changes.
Assess the Complexity and Migrate in Chunks
Migration can cause different problems for each page of your site. The more pages that are moved at one time, the greater the chance of making mistakes and the harder it is to pinpoint the problem. We recommend moving a large site bit by bit and testing it after every move.
The problem can arise when several changes are made at the same time: new CMS, URL changes, content changes, HTTPS to HTTP, etc.
Each change brings a new variable, and another thing to manage (and possibly mess up. Keep it as simple and straightforward as you can. Avoid making multiple changes all at once. If you can, avoid changing URLs. Make sure you do the necessary analysis and create clear plans.
Record the Current Site Status and Create a Content Backup
Create a record of the current status of your site and all backups necessary so you can fix any problems if anything goes wrong. Backup your entire content, including meta tags, titles, etc. How to backup all the content on your website could be an entire post.
The hosting of your website will determine how you back it up. Your site host may have a cPanel. You can use a plugin if you have a CMS such as WordPress. The easiest way to export your epic Content Audit Report is by simply exporting it. Ensure that your Site Audit and Position Tracking campaigns are updated and set up.
Update DNS Settings
You will need to update your DNS settings to point to the new IP address if you switch to a different server. You will need to contact your host and ask for the change.
Remove all Temporary Website Blocks
Check that your site is accessible to users and crawlers of search engines. Use the Crawlability and Coverage reports in Site Audit, as well as the Google Search Console's Crawlability Report.
Enable Redirection
If you haven't already, you can now enable and test your redirects. Rerun your Site Audit to ensure there are no 4xx errors on the Issues tab. You can then sort the Issues Tab by Permanent redirects and check the list of all URLs to ensure that they are correct.
Verify your Website in Google Search Console
Google Search Console settings (GSC), you need to verify that your website's ownership has not changed. Verify that the HTML file you use as a method of verification is present on your new website.
Request a Domain Change via GSC
You can help Google index the new URLs and reduce your ranking loss by submitting a "Change of Address" in Search Console.
Send Old and New URLs to GSC
You can submit two sitemaps that contain the old and the new URLs. This will help Googlebot to discover the redirects. You can then monitor the removal of your old URLs and the addition of new ones to the index. Only the new URLs need to be indexed.
Update all your Links (Ad Campaigns, Backlinks, etc.)
As soon as possible, you should update all links. Ask the sites that link to you to update the links. If this isn't possible, ensure that you have a 301 redirect in place. Check the links in your social media profiles.
Check the links on your social media profiles. An SEO audit can be used to identify all internal links that redirect. Check for loops and chains which may affect the performance of your website.
Resubmit any Disavowed Links to GSC
You will need to upload your disavow file again if you previously uploaded a list of disavows and you now have a Search Console account. Make sure that your disavow list is accessible on your new website. Otherwise, Google may take into consideration any spammy links to your old site.
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Summary of the Best Website Migration Strategies
It is important to remember that testing and careful planning are the keys to a smooth migration. Recap:
- Don't migrate the whole site all at once. Create a sample site to test first. Once you're sure that your site is working properly, begin moving it piece by piece.
- Avoid mixing different migration types into a single move. We recommend focusing on one thing at a time, for example, if your goal is to switch your domain name to a different host and redesign your website architecture.
- Migrate during low-traffic hours to minimize any impact should something go wrong. A reduced server load allows GoogleBot to index and crawl your new website development company quicker.
- Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. Website migration is an important undertaking with many potential issues and pitfalls. Use our checklist to help you along the way.
- Remember to plan and test!
The results are worth the effort. Google will be happy to see your site if you take the time to plan and migrate it carefully. Create your own custom checklist to keep you on track. So this is the website migration checklist. We hope you have got it.
