How do you migrate a website without losing SEO? Checklist, timeline and cost

What counts as a website migration, and what does Google expect to happen?

A migration is any change to how Google reaches your pages: a new domain, new URL paths, HTTP to HTTPS, a new CMS or a redesign that moves content. Google’s site-move guide, updated on 20 August 2026, says to expect ranking fluctuation while pages are recrawled; new URLs can take a few weeks or more to replace the old ones, longer on larger sites.

Google’s first rule is to change one thing at a time: domain first, then CMS, then layout. Its second is to time the move for a traffic dip.

What should you crawl, map and record before touching the live site?

The URL map is the core of the work. No single export is complete, so Google suggests combining sources and including images, videos, scripts and downloads that already earn traffic or links.

1. Crawl the live site: every indexable URL with status, title, H1, canonical and hreflang.
2. Add what Google knows: sitemaps, Search Console pages and links reports, server logs, top backlink targets.
3. Benchmark first: 28 days of clicks, impressions and conversions per template.
4. Give every URL one fate: keep, redirect to the closest equivalent, merge, or retire with 404 or 410.
5. Verify every old and new variant, www and non-www, HTTP and HTTPS, in Search Console.

How should the 301 redirects be built, and what breaks them?

Google reads permanent redirects, 301 and 308, as a signal that the target should be canonical; temporary ones, 302 and 307, keep the source page in results. A move needs the first kind, set on the server.

• One hop. Googlebot follows up to ten, but Google advises sending each old URL to its final page, with chains of about three hops at most.
• No dumping. Many old URLs sent to the new home page may count as soft 404s, unless you truly merged those pages.
• Honest errors. Content you drop should return 404 or 410 on the new site.
• Test at scale: URL Inspection for single pages, a crawler for thousands.
• Files too. Images, PDFs, CSS and JavaScript go through the same map.

Two Google pages differ on duration. The move guide says keep redirects as long as possible, generally at least a year. The Change of Address help says at least 180 days, and to keep paying for the old domain for a year so nobody else buys it.

Which titles, metadata and structured data must the new pages carry over?

Google asks for a self-referencing canonical on every new URL, hreflang rewritten to the new URLs and internal links updated from the map. A new template silently drops what it does not know, so tick a parity list per page type.

• Titles, meta descriptions and H1s of ranking pages. Improve them in a second step.
• The same JSON-LD structured-data types.
• Canonical, hreflang and robots meta, matching the new URLs.
• Analytics and consent tags, plus the Search Console verification file or meta tag.
• A disavow file, if you use one, re-uploaded under the new property.

How do you test on staging without the test site getting indexed?

Google’s hosting guide suggests a temporary hostname and a noindex rule so a test copy is not indexed by accident. But noindex only works if robots.txt does not block the page, because a blocked crawler never sees the rule. Semrush’s checklist adds a password.

• Prefer a password or IP allow-list; use noindex, as a meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header, where crawlers must reach the copy.
• List every block to lift at launch: noindex, headers, Disallow rules, the password.
• Give the new server headroom: after a move Google crawls more heavily, because old-site crawls redirect to the new one.
• Run the redirect map on staging, then forms, checkout and analytics.

What happens on launch day, and when do you file Change of Address?

1. Freeze and back upQuiet hour, content frozen, rollback trigger agreed first.
2. Switch on the redirectsTop URLs by hand, the full map by script.
3. Lift the staging blocksRemove noindex, headers, Disallow rules, password.
4. Submit the new sitemapA file holds up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB. Keep the old sitemap; Google says its redirect warnings are normal.
5. File Change of Address, domain moves onlyOnce redirects are live, as owner of both properties, for each old variant including www. The notice runs 180 days.
6. Update links you controlInternal links, profiles, ads, then big referrers.

What should you watch in the first 30 days, and how much fluctuation is normal?

Google says visibility may fluctuate temporarily, and gives no percentage. Project Cost Estimator, a cost guide, reports from its own data an average dip of 12% in weeks one and two with full preservation and 38% without: a vendor’s figure, not a promise.

How much does a website migration cost, by site size and complexity?

Quotes disagree because “migration” can mean copying files or rebuilding a platform. Each guide below prices a different scope, so read the last column before the first.

• URL count comes from a crawl. At $0.50–$2.00 a URL, a 500-URL redirect map alone is $250–$1,000.
• Platform pair, integrations, multilingual hreflang and ecommerce data each add a line.
• Monitoring length: 30 days at Khod, 90 days in Project Cost Estimator’s examples.

When is it better to wait, and what would expert help add up to?

• Only hosting changes and every URL stays: follow Google’s hosting guide; no redirect map is needed.
• You plan a new domain, CMS and design together: Google advises one at a time.
• There is no baseline, so you could not tell fluctuation from a fault.

If you go ahead, an audit, the migration and post-launch fixes can be bought separately; the calculator adds their live starting prices.

What is the printable checklist for before, on and after launch?

Two to six weeks before launch:

1. Crawl the old site: URLs, titles, H1s, canonicals, schema.
2. Save 28 days of Search Console and analytics data.
3. Finish the URL map: one decision per URL, no chains.
4. Verify all old and new variants in Search Console.
5. Staging behind a password or noindex; list blocks to lift.
6. Test redirects and parity on staging.
7. Agree the rollback trigger and the launch hour.

On launch day:

1. Redirects on and spot-checked; staging blocks removed.
2. Canonicals, hreflang and sitemap on new URLs; sitemap submitted.
3. Change of Address filed per old variant, domain moves only.
4. Forms, checkout and analytics tested live.

After launch:

1. Week 1: status codes and sitemap counts.
2. Weeks 2 to 4: performance per template against the benchmark.
3. Update links, profiles and ads; keep redirects 180 days at least, ideally a year.