There are many different types of website migration, whether you are changing protocol from HTTP to HTTPS, going international and needing to migrate from .co.uk to .com, or perhaps you have had a website redesign on a new platform and need to migrate your website to a new CMS. Whatever the change, it’s crucial you consider the impact this could have on your SEO. So, how do you go about migrating without losing all of your SEO efforts?
In order to minimise the impact of a site migration on your SEO, you need to have a plan and execute certain steps before the changes come into effect. This involves everything from taking a backup of your website in case of any issues, to creating a new sitemap, and making sure that your robots.txt file is updated. There are also steps to take after your site migration is complete, to ensure that everything is as it should be.
Read on to learn more about the steps to take when migrating your website to protect your SEO.

What Happens When You Migrate a Website?
When you migrate a website it essentially means you are making substantial changes that will affect how users interact with or access your website. If you migrate without any preparation this can mean you lose your SEO efforts, resulting in a big dip in traffic and making it harder for users to find you.
Types of Website Migration
Website migration is a term that covers a few different types of website change. Below are the most common types you may need to make.
- Website/CMS change: For example you change from one website platform to another, for example Wix to WordPress.
- Protocol Change: Changing from HTTP to HTTPS (recommended).
- New domain: You’ve changed your domain, perhaps from rebranding or finding a better suited one for your business.
- Changing top level domain: You’ve changed from .co.uk to .com for example.
How Long Does a Website Migration Take?
How long it takes to migrate depends on how large the site is and how carefully the process has been planned. This can be anything from a few days to a few weeks. Proper planning when migrating a website is essential to ensure that the site runs as it should and there are no major disruptions that affect access to the website.

How Do I Keep My SEO Rankings When Changing My Website?
If you are changing your website it is vital to carry out pre-launch SEO to ensure you don’t lose your SEO efforts.
Pre-launch SEO is:
- Re-directs – if URLs are changing in any way, ensure you collect all old URLs and correctly redirect them to the most relevant page on your new website using a 301 redirect, known as redirect mapping. This will cover users that have your old site as a bookmark as well as keeping intact any backlinks you have earned. Read more about Redirect mapping on our dedicated blog.
- New Sitemap – Create an XML sitemap of all pages you would like the search engines to crawl and index. Ensure to submit this to both Google and Bing once your new site is live. Learn about how often sitemaps should be submitted in our blog.
- Robots.txt – Ensure any pages you do not wish to be indexed, such as gated content, are included in your robots.txt file.
- Google Analytics and Search console – Make sure these are set up on the new site to enable data collection right away once the site is live.
- Review any new pages – ensure they have relevant and optimised title tags and descriptions.
- Keyword roadmap – Make sure this is still relevant and your keywords are still targeted correctly depending on the changes you are making.
- Site speed – Review the speed of your site for your users and optimise if needed. Learn how to do this in our dedicated blog.
If not properly migrated, search engines may treat your website as entirely new to the internet. As such, you could lose your domain authority and any link juice built up from your past website. Following the above beforehand means you have less chance of any major SEO disruptions.
What Happens Once The Migration Is Complete?
Once your website has been migrated you want to complete and check the following:
- Submit your sitemaps to Google and Bing if not already done.
- Check your redirects – check your pages redirect correctly and use a platform such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to identify issues.
- Complete a site speed audit and ensure the website is responsive and fast to users as well as meeting core web vitals scores.
- Monitor your keywords – you may get a dip on your keywords for a short period due to the change but these should recover as your website gets indexed. Monitor these for any drastic changes.
- Monitor your website through analytics and Google search console – you can monitor your traffic to ensure there are no abnormalities.

Need Help With Website Migration?
Wildcat Digital are a team specialising in all things SEO and PPC. If you need help with a website migration and have no idea where to start, then get in touch with a member of our team today and we can have a chat about your project.