How to migrate your website without losing Google rankings: redirect checklist

Migrating a site (changing platform, domain, structure or design) is one of the riskiest moments for your rankings. A well-done migration can keep or even improve your positions; a poorly done one can erase years of SEO work in days. The good news is that almost all the risk is controlled with preparation.

Google does not rank "your website": it ranks each URL. If a URL that ranked disappears without a redirect, you lose what you had earned.

What kind of migration it is

The risk changes depending on the case:

• Design change with the same URLs: low risk.
• Platform or CMS change: medium risk; URLs usually change.
• URL structure change: high risk; everything must be redirected.
• Domain change: high risk; requires a specific process.
• HTTP to HTTPS or language/country change: medium risk.

Before migrating

1. Make a complete URL inventory

Gather all the URLs of your current site:

• Crawl it with an audit tool.
• Export the URLs from your sitemap.
• Review the pages that get traffic and clicks in Google Search Console.
• Add the URLs with external links (backlinks).

2. Identify what is worth the most

Mark the URLs with the most traffic, conversions and links. Those are the ones you cannot lose and the ones to test first.

3. Save a baseline

Before touching anything, record positions, clicks and impressions, indexed pages and speed. Without that reference you will not know whether the migration worked.

4. Decide what stays, what merges and what is removed

Not everything needs to be kept. But every URL that disappears needs a thought-out destination: an equivalent page or, if none exists, the closest one.

The 301 redirect map

This is the central document of the migration: a table with the old URL and the new URL.

Important rules:

• Use 301 (permanent), not 302, for final changes.
• Avoid redirect chains (A → B → C): redirect straight to the final destination.
• Do not send everything to the homepage: Google treats it as a soft error and relevance is lost.
• Also redirect images and files with traffic or links, if their path changes.

What to keep on the new pages

• Titles and meta descriptions that already work (see titles and meta descriptions that raise your CTR).
• Heading structure and content that ranks (heading guide).
• Structured data and correct canonical tags.
• Internal links updated to the new URLs, so you do not depend on redirects.
• hreflang tags if your site is multilingual.

Test before publishing

In a test environment (blocked to search engines):

1. Check that every URL in the map redirects correctly.
2. Crawl the new site and look for 404 errors and chains.
3. Check that titles, metadata and canonicals are right.
4. Verify performance: Core Web Vitals should not get worse.
5. Test forms, payments and critical features.
6. Make sure the test site is not indexed and that the new one can be indexed once live (a common mistake is leaving the test environment's search engine block on).

Switch day

• Choose a low-traffic hour.
• Publish the new site with redirects active.
• Check the robots.txt file and the sitemap.
• Submit the new sitemap to Google Search Console.
• If you changed domain, use the change-of-address tool.

After migrating: monitoring

During the first weeks check often:

• New 404 errors in Search Console and in your logs.
• Indexing coverage: new URLs should be coming in.
• Positions and traffic against your baseline.
• Speed and crawl errors.

A small fluctuation while Google reprocesses the site is normal. A strong, sustained drop signals a problem to chase right away.

Common mistakes

• Migrating without a URL inventory.
• Redirecting everything to the homepage.
• Forgetting the test environment's indexing block.
• Changing design, structure and content all at once, with no way of knowing what caused a drop.
• Not telling those who link to your site.
• Not monitoring afterward.

How we do it at Codegea

We treat every migration as an SEO project as well as a technical one: inventory, redirect map, testing and monitoring. Learn about our migrations and on-page SEO services, and if you are changing platform, write to us from contact to review your case.