Inventory
A complete list of URLs from a crawl, the sitemap, Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and your inbound link profile. Only the combination of these sources shows what really has to move.
Most of the effort goes in before switchover day and just after it. Importing the content is usually the shortest stage of the whole project.
A complete list of URLs from a crawl, the sitemap, Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and your inbound link profile. Only the combination of these sources shows what really has to move.
Copy, products, categories, images, PDF files, authors and publication dates. Wherever possible through an API or a database export rather than manual copying.
Every old address is paired with a new equivalent, so that pages with traffic or backlinks do not end up returning a 404.
Implemented page by page, without chains or loops. Sending everything to the home page in bulk looks to Google as if the content has disappeared.
Titles, descriptions, alt attributes, canonical URLs, hreflang and structured data travel with the content, not at some later date.
We compare page counts and check links, images, forms, speed and cookie consent on a test version closed to crawlers.
In the first few weeks we regularly review indexing and 404 reports and fix anything that slipped through.
Timing depends on the number of pages and how tidy the data is. We schedule the switch for a quiet midweek day rather than a Friday afternoon.
What moves, what gets tidied, what is dropped and which URLs matter most. The list comes from Search Console, a crawl and analytics.
Built on a test address blocked from search engines, with a trial content import.
Full import, redirect map deployed and a review of every group of pages.
DNS change, crawler block lifted, new sitemap submitted in Search Console and daily monitoring of indexing.
The most common migration mistake is a crawler block carried over from staging to production. A “Disallow: /” line in robots.txt or a noindex tag that protected the test site survives the switch. The site looks fine while Google starts dropping it from the index. Checking for this is the first item on our launch day list.
With a careful migration any dip tends to be small and temporary. Heavy losses hit those who changed URLs without redirects or pointed everything at the home page. A URL map built address by address is the single best insurance.
Usually yes: if the site is being rebuilt anyway, copying the old design one to one rarely makes sense. Avoid changing URLs, structure, content and domain all at once, though. The fewer variables shift together, the easier it is to explain any drop.
Keep it switched off but complete, database included, for at least a few months. If a section or some attachments turn out to have been missed, we can retrieve them from there. Deleting the old site the day after launch is asking for trouble.
Yes, as long as the data format allows it. Passwords are stored as hashes in the format of the old system, so we either support that format at first login or ask users to set a new password. Transfers of personal data are recorded in your GDPR documentation.
Not necessarily, but it is a good moment to review the server: PHP or Node.js version, certificate, email on the domain. We can separate the hosting move from the CMS change so that each can be monitored on its own.
Tell us which platform your site runs on today and where you want to go. We will start by collecting the list of indexed URLs.
Your enquiry has reached us
You will hear back within one working day, and if you have reported an outage that is holding up work, it goes to the front of the queue.
No match for that name. Try a different spelling or pick a bigger town nearby - all our support is delivered online, so your choice has no effect on the service.