Migrations — new hosting, a new domain, or moving from a subdomain to a root domain — are one of the most common ways businesses accidentally destroy months or years of SEO progress. Done correctly, ranking loss is preventable, not inevitable.
Before you touch anything
Export a full list of your current site’s indexed URLs from Google Search Console’s Coverage report, or crawl the site with a tool like Screaming Frog, before making any changes. You need this list to verify every important page survives the move with a working redirect — you can’t fix what you don’t know existed.
If you’re changing hosting only, same domain
- Set up the site fully on the new host first, without pointing the domain there yet.
- Test thoroughly on the new host’s temporary URL or by editing your local hosts file to preview it before the switch.
- Update DNS to point to the new host, and keep the old host active for 24–48 hours until DNS propagation completes everywhere.
- Verify the site loads correctly from multiple locations and networks before decommissioning old hosting entirely.
If you’re changing domains, the higher-risk move
The critical step: 301 redirect every old URL to its corresponding new URL, one-to-one — not a blanket redirect of everything to the new homepage. A blanket homepage redirect tells Google every old page is now the same page, which tanks rankings instead of preserving them.
- Map old URL to new URL for every indexed page, especially your highest-traffic pages.
- Set up 301 (permanent) redirects, not 302 (temporary) — the redirect type genuinely affects how Google treats the ranking transfer.
- Update internal links across the site to point directly to new URLs, not through the redirect chain.
- Submit the new domain as a property in Google Search Console and submit its sitemap.
- Use the “Change of Address” tool in Search Console if you’re moving between two already-verified properties.
After migration: monitor closely for 2–4 weeks
- Watch Search Console’s Coverage report for a spike in 404s or “not found” errors, which signals a missed redirect.
- Check your top pages are still ranking for their target keywords; some temporary fluctuation is normal, a total disappearance is not.
- Confirm structured data, meta tags, and canonical URLs all reference the new domain, with no leftover references to the old one.
The most common mistake
Forgetting to update the canonical tag and internal links to the new URLs, leaving them pointing at the old domain even after redirects are in place. This confuses Google about which version is authoritative and slows the ranking transfer significantly. I go into full detail on this and the rest of the process in my complete migration guide.
Planning a migration and want it done without losing your rankings? Let’s plan it on WhatsApp.
