Site Migration Checklist with SEO Preservation
Complete migration plan for domain, platform, or redesign guaranteeing zero organic traffic loss.
Execute a site migration (domain change, platform change, or redesign) without losing organic traffic, preserving rankings, backlinks, and authority earned over time.
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Prompt objective
Execute a site migration (domain change, platform change, or redesign) without losing organic traffic, preserving rankings, backlinks, and authority earned over time.
Real use case
BelezaNatural, a natural cosmetics e-commerce store, is migrating from Magento 1 to Shopify, changing the URL structure of 5,600 products. Current organic traffic generates $[VALUE]/month in sales. Their last migration attempt (done without SEO considerations) resulted in a 65% traffic drop for 6 months.
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Prompt
Create a complete site migration checklist with SEO preservation focus for [WEBSITE NAME], migrating from [CURRENT PLATFORM] to [NEW PLATFORM]. Migration type: [DOMAIN/PLATFORM/REDESIGN/HTTPS/ALL] Number of URLs: [NUMBER] Current organic traffic: [NUMBER] visits/month Organic revenue: $[VALUE]/month **PRE-MIGRATION (4-6 weeks before):** 1) **Complete inventory:** - [ ] Full site crawl with Screaming Frog (all URLs, status codes, existing redirects) - [ ] Export all indexed URLs (Google Search Console + sitemap) - [ ] Export all backlinks (Ahrefs: referring domains + backlinks) - [ ] Benchmark metrics: top 100 keyword positions, traffic by landing page, conversions by page - [ ] Screenshots of SERPs for main keywords 2) **Redirect mapping:** - [ ] Spreadsheet with 1:1 mapping from old URL → new URL (ALL URLs) - [ ] Regex redirect rules for parameterized URLs - [ ] Identify URLs to be consolidated (merge + redirect) - [ ] Identify URLs to be removed (redirect to parent category) - [ ] ZERO redirect chains (old → intermediate → new is PROHIBITED) 3) **Staging environment:** - [ ] New site on staging with same content - [ ] Screaming Frog crawl of staging: compare structure - [ ] Validate Schema markup on staging - [ ] Test Core Web Vitals on staging - [ ] Verify internal linking on staging **MIGRATION DAY:** 4) **Execution:** - [ ] Implement ALL 301 redirects - [ ] Update DNS (TTL set to 300s, prepared 48h before) - [ ] Submit new sitemap in Google Search Console - [ ] Add new property in GSC (if domain changed) - [ ] Use 'Change of Address' tool in GSC (if domain changed) - [ ] Verify robots.txt (DO NOT block Googlebot) - [ ] Force re-crawl of top 50 pages via URL Inspection **POST-MIGRATION (12 weeks of monitoring):** 5) **Week 1:** - [ ] Monitor indexing daily (Coverage report) - [ ] Check for soft 404s and crawl errors - [ ] Manually test sample of 100 redirects - [ ] Monitor top keyword positions (daily) - [ ] Check organic traffic (expect temporary 10-20% drop) 6) **Weeks 2-4:** - [ ] Fix any redirect chains found - [ ] Resolve 404 errors reported in GSC - [ ] Update backlinks pointing to old URLs (outreach to partner sites) - [ ] Compare positions: before vs. after 7) **Months 2-3:** - [ ] Organic traffic should reach 90%+ of pre-migration levels - [ ] Backlinks transferred: verify in Ahrefs - [ ] Core Web Vitals of new site: optimize if needed - [ ] Final report: before/after metrics, lessons learned **SUCCESS METRICS:** - Organic traffic at 30 days: ≥80% of pre-migration - Organic traffic at 90 days: ≥95% of pre-migration - Zero important pages returning 404 - 100% of redirects functioning - Top 20 keyword positions: ±3 positions Deliver the checklist with assignees and dates for each item.
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- 1Replace the key placeholders first: WEBSITE NAME, CURRENT PLATFORM, NEW PLATFORM, DOMAIN/PLATFORM/REDESIGN/HTTPS/ALL.
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