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Website Operations

Website Migration SEO Checklist

Redirects, canonicals, sitemaps, and post-migration monitoring.

CBConsoleBoard Editorial Team📅 Published October 1, 2026⏱ 7 min read

A site migration is any change that affects URL structure, content, or platform. Migrations are high-risk for SEO because they can break URLs, lose rankings, and disrupt indexation. This checklist covers the steps to preserve SEO during a migration. See Website Regeneration SOP for content updates without a full migration.

Pre-migration

  • Crawl the old site and export all URLs
  • Map every old URL to its new URL (1:1 where possible)
  • Identify high-traffic and high-value URLs for priority handling
  • Prepare 301 redirects for all changed URLs
  • Export the old XML sitemap for comparison

During migration

  • Implement 301 redirects from old to new URLs
  • Maintain canonical tags on the new site
  • Preserve or recreate structured data
  • Update internal links to point to new URLs (not through redirects)
  • Update the XML sitemap with new URLs
  • Update robots.txt if path rules changed

Post-migration

  • Submit the new sitemap in Search Console
  • Use URL Inspection on key pages to confirm indexing
  • Monitor the Coverage report for new errors
  • Check for redirect chains or loops
  • Monitor traffic for 2–4 weeks for unexpected drops

Primary sources