Launch and hope
- Redirects written after go-live
- Old URLs discovered from 404 reports
- Metadata and content lost in the rebuild
- Recovery measured in quarters
Protect what you already earned
SEO Migration& Relaunch.
Redesigns, replatforms, domain changes and URL restructures handled as a controlled transfer of search equity—mapped before launch, monitored through launch, and verified after it.
What is an SEO migration? It is the planned transfer of a website's rankings, links, content signals and indexed URLs to a new domain, platform, design or URL structure—executed so search engines and users end up exactly where they should, with as little visibility loss as possible.
1:1URL mapping before launch—no valuable page left without a destination
1 yrminimum redirect retention, following Google's site-move guidance
0silent launches: every release is baselined, rehearsed and verified
The difference
A relaunch is a transfer, not a reveal.
Most migration damage is decided before launch day. When URL mapping, canonical logic, internal links, metadata and sitemap changes are treated as a post-launch task, search engines encounter a site that contradicts everything they previously understood about it.
RAASIS runs migration as an engineering discipline: an inventory of what has value, a mapped destination for every URL that matters, a rehearsal on staging, a monitored launch window, and evidence-based verification that the new estate is fully indexed and performing.
Governed migration
- Mapping approved before code freeze
- Inventory built from crawl, logs and Search Console
- Signals preserved template by template
- Issues caught in the first hours, not months
Key advantages
Change without losing ground.
A migration is the one project where doing nothing wrong is worth more than doing something clever. These are the guarantees a governed process creates.
Preserve link equity
Years of earned links keep their destination through permanent, single-hop redirects to the closest equivalent page.
Protect revenue pages
Commercial templates, top landing pages and converting URLs are identified first and defended hardest.
Launch with evidence
A pre-launch baseline makes it possible to prove what changed, what recovered and what still needs attention.
Catch faults in hours
Structured launch-window monitoring surfaces blocked crawling, broken redirects and lost templates immediately.
Align design and SEO
Redesign decisions are pressure-tested against search impact while they are still cheap to change.
Keep AI visibility
Stable URLs, preserved content and clean indexation protect the pages that AI answer surfaces already reference.
Migration types we govern
Every kind of move.
Each migration type fails differently. Scope, rehearsal depth and monitoring intensity are matched to the specific risk profile of your change.
WordPress redesign & rebuild
Theme and builder changes that silently alter headings, metadata, internal links, pagination and template structure while the URLs appear unchanged.
TemplatesMetadataInternal linksPlugins
Shopify & ecommerce replatform
Catalog moves where collection logic, product handles, variants, filters and out-of-stock behaviour decide whether revenue pages survive the transition.
CollectionsProduct URLsFacetsFeeds
Domain or brand change
Full-domain moves with redirect governance, Search Console change of address, brand entity updates and external link outreach where it matters most.
Domain moveChange of addressEntityBacklinks
URL restructuring & new IA
Navigation and hierarchy changes that reshape click depth, breadcrumb logic, category paths and how relevance flows through the site.
HierarchyClick depthBreadcrumbsSlugs
CMS replatform & headless
Moves to new stacks where rendering method, routing, caching and server responses change how crawlers actually experience the site.
RenderingRoutingStatus codesCaching
Site consolidation & merges
Combining brands, microsites or acquired domains into one estate without creating duplication, cannibalization or orphaned authority.
ConsolidationDuplicationCanonicalsMapping
HTTPS & infrastructure moves
Protocol changes, host moves, CDN introductions and subdomain-to-subdirectory shifts where server behaviour is the entire migration.
HTTPSHostingCDNSubdomains
Staging-to-production launches
Release governance that prevents the classic disasters: staging left indexable, production left blocked, or noindex shipped to the live site.
RobotsNoindexQA gatesGo-live
The migration engine
Rehearse, then release.
Google notes that a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and that visibility may fluctuate temporarily. The process is designed for that reality.
Capture the truth
Crawl, Search Console, analytics and log data recorded before anything changes.
Route every URL
Destination decided for each valuable URL, with rules reviewed template by template.
Test on staging
Redirects, canonicals, metadata, rendering and robots verified before the release is approved.
Ship and watch
Go-live checks, crawl invitations, sitemap submission and hour-by-hour monitoring.
Prove recovery
Indexation, rankings, traffic and conversions compared against the pre-launch baseline.
Key trends • 2026 migration practice
What actually protects a relaunch now.
Google treats a move as a five-phase project.
The official guidance sequences the work: understand best practices, prepare the new site, build URL mapping, execute the move, then monitor. It also advises keeping redirects in place for as long as possible—generally at least one year.
Read the site move guidanceServer-side redirects are the reliable option.
Google ranks redirect methods by reliability: server-side first, meta refresh second, JavaScript only when nothing else is possible—because rendering can fail before the redirect is ever seen.
Compare redirect typesThe tool helps—but only for real domain moves.
Search Console's change of address applies to domain-level moves with 301s already live. It is not for HTTPS switches, www changes or internal reorganizations, and it must be applied across each relevant property.
Review the tool requirementsEvery signal must point the same way.
Redirects, canonical tags, internal links and sitemap entries have to agree on the final URL. Contradictory signals are one of the most common causes of a migration that never fully recovers.
Read canonicalization guidanceDo not change everything on the same night.
Domain change plus redesign plus new IA in one release makes diagnosis nearly impossible. Sequencing changes keeps cause and effect legible when performance moves.
See moves without URL changesRelaunches now put AI visibility at risk too.
Pages referenced by AI answer surfaces depend on the same foundations—stable URLs, preserved content and clean indexation. A careless migration can remove you from answers as well as from rankings.
See Google's AI search guidanceHigh-intent keyword universe
How teams search for this.
These commercially relevant search themes inform how this service is structured and described. Final targeting is validated against your market, audience and live search data.
SEO migration serviceswebsite migration SEOsite migration checklistSEO migration agencydomain migration SEO301 redirect mappingwebsite redesign SEOreplatforming SEOShopify migration SEOWordPress migration SEOURL restructuring SEOHTTPS migration SEOwebsite relaunch SEOpost-launch SEO monitoringrecover traffic after migration
Keyword popularity varies by country, season and tool dataset. We use these as intent clusters that shape service design—not as a licence for repetition or keyword stuffing.
Pre-launch / launch / post-launch
Three windows that decide everything.
Timing depends on site size, platform and team capacity. What does not change is the order: nothing ships until the mapping is approved and rehearsed.
Inventory & rehearsal
- Full URL inventory from crawl, sitemaps, logs and Search Console
- Value ranking by traffic, conversions, links and query coverage
- Redirect map approved template by template, one hop only
- Metadata, headings and content preservation matrix
- Staging QA: robots, noindex, canonicals, rendering, status codes
- Baseline snapshot of rankings, indexation and organic revenue
Controlled release
- Go-live checklist executed in a defined sequence
- Robots.txt and noindex directives verified on production
- XML sitemaps updated and submitted for the new estate
- Redirect spot-checks across every major template
- Search Console change of address where a domain move applies
- Live crawl to catch chains, loops and unexpected 404s
Monitor & verify
- Daily error and coverage review through the critical window
- Indexation tracking for priority templates and revenue pages
- Ranking and traffic comparison against the pre-launch baseline
- Internal-link and orphan cleanup on the new structure
- External link outreach for the highest-value inbound sources
- Closing report with residual risks and follow-up owners
Redirect governance
Every URL has an owner.
An illustrative extract from a redirect map. Real maps are built from your inventory and reviewed rule by rule before code freeze.
Legacy URLDestinationMethodPriority
/services/seo-old//search-engine-optimization-seo301Revenue/blog/?p=482/blog/topic-clusters-guide301Authorityhttp://www.example.com/https://example.com/301Critical/category/shoes?colour=red/category/shoesCanonicalFacet/campaign/expired-offer//offers301ConsolidateRules of the map: one hop to the final destination, closest topical equivalent rather than a blanket redirect to the homepage, permanent status codes for permanent moves, and no redirect chains left in production.
When to bring us in
Earlier is cheaper.
The most valuable moment to involve SEO is while the new structure is still a wireframe—not after the launch date is announced.
A redesign or rebuild is being scoped
URL structure, templates and navigation decisions are still open and cheap to influence.
You are changing platform or CMS
Rendering, routing and URL generation will all change at once and need testing before release.
The brand or domain is changing
Domain moves carry the highest risk and require redirect governance plus entity updates.
Two or more sites are being merged
Consolidation needs a duplication plan before content is combined, not afterwards.
Traffic dropped after a recent launch
We diagnose redirect, indexation, template and content-loss causes and prioritize recovery.
Nobody owns SEO in the release plan
Development, design and marketing each assume another team is protecting organic performance.
What you receive
Artefacts, not assurances.
Depth scales with site size and migration type, but every engagement produces documents your developers can implement directly.
URL inventory
Every known URL with traffic, links, conversions and index status attached.
Redirect map
Approved source-to-destination rules, template logic and exception handling.
Preservation matrix
Metadata, headings, content blocks and schema that must survive the rebuild.
Staging QA report
Findings from the rehearsal crawl, with blocking issues flagged before release.
Launch runbook
The go-live sequence, owners, verification steps and rollback triggers.
Baseline snapshot
Pre-launch rankings, indexation, traffic and revenue for honest comparison.
Monitoring dashboard
What is tracked daily through the critical window and what triggers escalation.
Verification report
Recovery status, residual risks, remaining fixes and named follow-up owners.
Risk register
The failures we design against.
These are the recurring causes of post-migration traffic loss. Each one has a specific control in the runbook.
- Detect early: staging rehearsal catches most of these before release.
- Fail loudly: monitoring is built to surface issues within hours.
- Fix in order: crawl access first, then indexation, then relevance.
- Verify honestly: recovery is measured against the baseline, not against hope.
RiskControl in the runbookSeverity
Noindex or robots block shipped liveProduction directive verification gateCritical
Redirect chains and loopsOne-hop rule enforced in the mapHigh
Blanket redirects to the homepageClosest-equivalent mapping policyHigh
Metadata and content lost in rebuildPreservation matrix signed off pre-buildHigh
Internal links still pointing to old URLsPost-launch link sweep and cleanupMedium
Stale sitemaps and canonical conflictsSignal-stack alignment checkMedium
What this service does
Makes the move survivable.
- Inventories and ranks everything of value before launch
- Maps each URL to its closest, permanent destination
- Rehearses the release and blocks unsafe go-lives
- Monitors, diagnoses and verifies recovery with evidence
What it does not do
Promise zero fluctuation.
- No guarantee of identical rankings the morning after launch
- No claim that a migration cannot temporarily affect visibility
- No blanket redirects used to hide missing content
- No sign-off on a release that fails the staging gate
Frequently asked questions
Answered before code freeze.
The questions development, marketing and leadership teams ask when planning a relaunch.
SEO migration services plan and govern the search side of a website change—redesign, replatform, domain move, URL restructure or site merge. That covers URL inventory, redirect mapping, content and metadata preservation, canonical and sitemap alignment, staging QA, launch-day execution support, monitoring and post-launch verification.
Some fluctuation is normal. Google states that visibility may vary temporarily while a move is processed, and that a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move. The goal of a governed migration is to keep changes temporary and shallow rather than permanent and severe—which is what happens when mapping is missing or contradictory.
At the wireframe and information-architecture stage. Once templates are built and the launch date is fixed, the cheapest fixes are already unavailable. Early involvement lets us influence URL structure, navigation, template content and rendering decisions while they cost nothing to change.
Permanent server-side redirects—301 or 308—for permanent moves. Google ranks server-side redirects as the most reliable method, with meta refresh second and JavaScript redirects a last resort because rendering may fail. Each redirect should reach its destination in a single hop.
Google advises keeping redirects for as long as possible, generally at least one year. In practice, if old URLs still attract external links or referral traffic, the redirects should stay—removing them later simply converts earned equity into 404s.
Only for genuine domain-level moves, and only once 301 redirects are already live. It does not apply to HTTP-to-HTTPS switches, www changes, internal reorganizations or hosting changes without URL modification. It also has to be applied across the relevant subdomain properties.
You can, but it makes diagnosis much harder. If performance shifts, you cannot tell whether the domain, the design, the content or the URL structure caused it. Where the schedule allows, we recommend sequencing the changes and letting each one stabilize before the next.
Usually a meaningful part of it can. We run a recovery diagnosis: crawl and index access, redirect integrity, lost templates and content, canonical conflicts, internal-link damage and measurement errors. Recovery speed depends on how long the issues have persisted and how much content was actually lost rather than moved.
We work alongside them. Deliverables are written for implementation: explicit redirect rules, template requirements, acceptance criteria and QA gates. Where you need build capacity, RAASIS also designs and develops websites, so the same team can handle both sides.
It depends on site size, template diversity, platform and how much of the inventory is worth preserving. A focused redesign migration is shorter than a multi-domain consolidation. We confirm scope and timeline after reviewing your URL volume, launch date and access—rather than quoting a universal duration.
Before the launch date
Move without losing ground.
Tell us what is changing and when it goes live. We will open WhatsApp with a structured brief for you to review before sending.
No unsafe launches signed offScope matched to your platform and riskYour details are not posted publicly