SEO Migration & Website Relaunch Services

A site migration or relaunch is one of the highest-risk moments in SEO. Done wrong, it can wipe out years of organic equity overnight. I plan and oversee every phase of the migration to protect your traffic and use the transition as an opportunity to improve.

I've seen it too many times: a company spends months on a beautiful redesign, launches with excitement, and watches organic traffic crater by 40–60% within weeks. The CEO is furious, the marketing team is scrambling, and the recovery takes 6–12 months. It doesn't have to be this way. A properly planned migration protects your organic equity and can even <em>improve</em> your rankings by cleaning up years of accumulated technical debt. But it requires meticulous planning, comprehensive redirect mapping, and careful post-launch monitoring. This is not a place to cut corners.

Who this is for

→ Companies redesigning their website (new design, same platform)
→ Businesses migrating to a new platform (e.g., WordPress to Shopify, custom to Webflow)
→ Brands changing domain names or URL structures
→ Companies consolidating multiple websites into one
→ Any business whose last migration caused traffic losses they want to avoid repeating

How it works

Pre-Migration Audit

Baseline your current organic performance, crawl the existing site, and identify every URL, backlink, and ranking that needs to be preserved. This is the "measure twice" phase.

Redirect Mapping

Create a complete 1:1 redirect map ensuring every changed URL passes equity to its new destination. For large sites, this can involve thousands of redirect rules — every one matters.

Staging Review

Crawl and review the new site in staging before launch. Check for SEO issues, missing redirects, blocked pages, broken functionality, and content parity.

Launch & Monitor

Oversee the launch day, verify redirects are firing correctly, and actively monitor rankings, crawl activity, and traffic for 4–8 weeks post-launch.

What's included

Pre-Migration Audit

Baseline your current organic performance, crawl the existing site, and identify every URL that needs to be mapped and preserved. This includes cataloguing all rankings, backlinks, and high-traffic pages — the assets you cannot afford to lose.

URL Mapping & Redirect Strategy

Create a complete redirect map ensuring every changed URL passes equity to its new destination — with zero orphaned redirects. For large migrations, I use automated mapping tools combined with manual review to ensure accuracy.

Staging Site Review

Review the new site in staging before launch to catch technical issues, missing redirects, blocked pages, content gaps, and SEO regressions before they go live. This is the last line of defence before the real thing.

Post-Launch Monitoring

Active monitoring of rankings, crawl errors, indexation, and traffic for 4–8 weeks post-launch to catch and resolve any issues quickly. Includes daily GSC checks, crawl comparisons, and ranking tracking to ensure a smooth transition.

Frequently asked questions

As early as possible — ideally at the planning stage, before the new site is built. The earlier SEO is involved, the lower the risk and the less expensive fixes are. Bringing in SEO after the new site is already in staging limits what can be changed.

Launching without a complete redirect map. Missing redirects on high-traffic or high-authority pages can cause significant, lasting ranking losses. Other common mistakes: changing URL structures unnecessarily, removing content that was ranking, blocking the new site from crawlers after launch, and not monitoring closely enough post-launch.

Often yes, though recovery time depends on how long the issues were live and how severe they are. I've helped businesses recover from failed migrations through systematic redirect fixes, recrawl requests, content recovery, and targeted authority rebuilding. The sooner you act, the faster the recovery.

A well-planned migration typically sees a 10–20% traffic dip for 2–4 weeks as Google recrawls and reprocesses your URLs. This is normal. What's not normal is a 40%+ drop that persists beyond 4 weeks — that indicates problems that need immediate attention.

Platform migrations are higher risk than simple redesigns because URL structures, site architecture, and technical capabilities often change significantly. WordPress to Shopify specifically requires careful handling of blog URLs, category structures, and metadata. It's absolutely doable safely — but it requires thorough planning.