migrate-site

SKILL.md

Migrate Site

Guide a domain migration, CMS switch, or URL restructure without losing
rankings — redirect mapping, monitoring plan, and rollback criteria.

Migration Types

Type
Risk Level
Example

Domain change
High
olddomain.com → newdomain.com

Protocol change
Low
HTTP → HTTPS

CMS switch
Medium-High
WordPress → Next.js, Shopify → custom

URL restructure
Medium
/blog/2024/post → /blog/post

Subdomain migration
Medium
blog.example.com → example.com/blog

Design/template change
Low-Medium
Same URLs, new templates

All migrations carry SEO risk. The goal is to minimize the traffic dip and speed up recovery.

Phase 1: Pre-Migration Audit
Inventory Everything

Before touching anything, document the current state:

Pages:

 Full list of all indexed URLs (from sitemap + Search Console)

 Each page's monthly traffic (Search Console, last 6 months)

 Each page's top keywords and positions

 Each page's backlink count (pages with external links need special attention)

Technical:

 Current robots.txt

 Current XML sitemap(s)

 Current redirect rules

 Current structured data

 Current canonical tags

 Current internal linking structure

Performance:

 Total organic traffic baseline (weekly and monthly)

 Top 50 pages by traffic

 Core Web Vitals scores

 Crawl stats from Search Console

Save everything. You need this data to compare against post-migration.

Identify High-Value Pages

Not all pages are equal. Flag these for extra attention:

Pages with the most organic traffic (top 20%)

Pages with external backlinks

Pages that rank for high-value keywords

Landing pages tied to conversions

Pages with featured snippets

These pages must have working redirects and should be verified individually after migration.

Phase 2: Redirect Mapping

The redirect map is the most critical artifact. Every old URL must map to the right new URL.

Mapping Rules

Old URL
New URL
Type
Notes

/old-page
/new-page
301
Content matches

/removed-page
/closest-relevant-page
301
Consolidated into related page

/deleted-page
/
301
No relevant page — send to homepage (last resort)

Rules:

Use 301 redirects for permanent moves (not 302)

Map each old URL to the most relevant new URL (not all to homepage)

Preserve URL structure where possible (fewer redirects = less risk)

Avoid redirect chains (old → intermediate → new). Every redirect should be direct.

Handle URL variations: with/without trailing slash, with/without www, HTTP/HTTPS

Common Pitfalls

Forgetting to redirect paginated URLs (/page/2, /page/3)

Missing query parameter URLs that have backlinks

Case sensitivity issues (some servers treat /Page and /page differently)

Redirecting everything to the homepage (kills page-level authority)

Phase 3: Technical Setup

Before the Switch

 New site is fully crawlable (no staging robots.txt left behind)

 All redirect rules are implemented and tested

 New XML sitemap is ready (with new URLs)

 Canonical tags on new pages point to new URLs (not old)

 Internal links updated to new URLs (don't rely on redirect chains for internal links)

 Structured data updated with new URLs

 Hreflang tags updated (if multilingual)

 Google Search Console property created for new domain (if domain change)

 Analytics tracking updated on new site

 CDN/caching configured for new site

The Switch

 Deploy redirect rules

 Deploy new site

 Verify redirects are working (spot-check 20+ URLs)

 Submit new sitemap to Search Console

 If domain change: use Search Console's Change of Address tool

 Force-crawl key pages using Search Console URL Inspection

 Monitor server errors in real-time for the first 24 hours

Phase 4: Post-Migration Monitoring

Week 1 (daily checks)

 Check Search Console for crawl errors (404s, 5xx errors)

 Verify organic traffic hasn't dropped catastrophically

 Check that redirects are still working

 Look for pages returning 404 that should redirect

 Monitor server response times (migration can reveal performance issues)

Weeks 2-4 (weekly checks)

 Compare organic traffic to pre-migration baseline

 Check indexation status in Search Console (indexed page count)

 Verify key pages are indexed under new URLs

 Check ranking positions for top keywords

 Review crawl stats for anomalies

Months 2-3 (monthly checks)

 Traffic should be recovering to pre-migration levels

 All old URLs should show as redirected in Search Console

 New URLs should be indexed and ranking

 Core Web Vitals should be stable

Expected Timeline

Traffic dip: Normal. Expect 10-30% drop in the first 2-4 weeks.

Recovery: Most sites recover within 2-3 months if redirects are correct.

Full stabilization: 3-6 months for large sites.

Red flag: If traffic hasn't started recovering after 4 weeks, investigate.

Phase 5: Rollback Plan

Before migrating, define rollback criteria:

Rollback if:

Organic traffic drops > 50% for more than 7 days

More than 20% of redirects are broken

Critical conversion pages are not accessible

Server errors exceed acceptable threshold

Rollback steps:

Revert DNS (if domain change) or redeploy old site

Remove or reverse redirects

Re-submit old sitemap

Investigate what went wrong before attempting again

Output Format

Migration Plan: [old] → [new]

Migration Type: [domain change / CMS switch / URL restructure / etc.]
Risk Level: [low / medium / high]
Estimated Timeline: [preparation + execution + monitoring]

Pre-Migration Inventory

Total indexed pages: [count]

Pages with backlinks: [count]

Top traffic pages: [list top 10]

Current monthly organic traffic: [baseline]

Redirect Map
[Table — full mapping of old → new URLs]

Technical Checklist
[Checklist from Phase 3]

Monitoring Schedule
[Checkpoints from Phase 4]

Rollback Criteria
[Defined thresholds and steps]

Risk Areas

High-value pages that need extra attention

Known technical challenges for this migration type

External backlinks that must be preserved

Pro Tip: Use the free Broken Link Checker
to verify redirects post-migration, and the Htaccess Generator
to build redirect rules. SEOJuice MCP users can run /seojuice:site-health for a full
page inventory with link data, /seojuice:keyword-analysis to identify high-value pages,
and list_changes to detect content differences post-migration.