How to migrate a website without losing SEO

Why traffic drops after a redesign

When a new site loses traffic, the builder is rarely the cause. It's usually one of these mistakes, and each can be prevented before launch.

• URLs changed with no redirect. /blog/pricing-guide becomes /resources/pricing-guide and the old address returns a 404.
• Everything redirected to the homepage. Google treats a mass redirect to an unrelated page much like a missing page, so the old page's value doesn't transfer.
• Ranking content cut down. A long guide that brought in signups gets trimmed to two paragraphs because it didn't fit the new layout.
• Staging settings left on. A noindex tag, a password, or a robots.txt that blocks everything goes live with the site.
• Small URL format changes: a trailing slash added, capital letters, a /blog/ prefix dropped. To a search engine each of those is a different URL.

Step one: list every URL that earns something

Pull from four places, because each one misses pages the others catch.

1. Search Console, Performance report: Export pages with clicks over the last 12 months. These are the URLs Google already sends people to.
2. Your analytics: Top landing pages by sessions and by conversions. A page with little search traffic can still be where most signups start.
3. A crawl of the live site: Screaming Frog's free version crawls up to 500 URLs, enough for most startup sites. It finds orphan pages and old campaign pages people forgot.
4. Links from other sites: Search Console's Links report shows which of your pages other sites link to. Those links stop counting the day the URL 404s.

Put it all in one spreadsheet. The URL map is the most useful document in a migration and the one most teams skip. Example rows:

Step two: give each URL a fate

• Keep the same URL whenever you can. It's the only option with no risk at all, and a new design doesn't need new addresses.
• 301 to the closest equivalent page when the URL has to change. Closest means the same topic, even if it now lives in a different section.
• Merge two thin pages into one, and 301 both old URLs to it.
• Return 410 for pages that are gone for good, like an expired event. Don't send them to the homepage.

For CMS content, use pattern redirects instead of hundreds of single rows. In Framer, /blog/* redirecting to /articles/:1 moves every post in one rule; Webflow, WordPress plugins and most hosts have their own version. Then test that each old URL reaches its new page in one hop. Redirect chains (A to B to C) slow crawling and lose some of the signal.

Step three: carry over what made pages rank

For every page with real search traffic, copy the current title tag, meta description, H1 and body into the map before you redesign it. Then make any changes on purpose. A redesign is a good time to improve a weak title and a bad time to delete the paragraph Google was quoting.

Carry over image alt text, structured data, hreflang tags if you run several languages, and canonical tags (on the new site they should point to the page itself). Point internal links at the new URLs directly. Links that lean on redirects still work, but every visit and every crawl takes an extra step.

A migration is also the cheapest moment to fix structure: one topic per page, proper headings, links between neighbours. At xPay that kind of restructure doubled indexed pages without any platform move; the Framer SEO guide tells that story.

Launch day, in order

1. Remove staging protection: Take off the password and any noindex, and check robots.txt doesn't block the site.
2. Put redirects live before switching DNS: So the first visitor to an old URL already gets the 301.
3. Switch the domain: If the domain itself is changing, redirect every old-domain URL to its new equivalent and use Search Console's Change of Address tool.
4. Test the top old URLs: Run your top 50 old URLs through a redirect checker or curl -I. Each should return one 301, then a 200.
5. Submit the new sitemap: In Search Console, and inspect your five most important pages so Google crawls them early.
6. Update links you control: Ads, email footers, social profiles, docs and partner listings, so they point at the new URLs directly.

Weeks one to six: what to watch

Rankings wobble for a few weeks after any move while Google recrawls. A dip in week one is normal; a page still missing in week four needs fixing.

• Search Console's Pages report: look at Not found (404), Excluded by noindex tag, and Crawled, currently not indexed. New entries there after launch are the pages to fix first.
• Performance report: compare clicks per page against the same weeks before launch, page by page, using your URL map.
• Redirect hits in your host's logs or analytics, to spot old URLs you missed.
• Keep every redirect for at least a year, longer if the old URLs have links from other sites.

For the checks that aren't about URLs (forms, analytics, phone layouts, social previews), use the website launch checklist alongside this. If you're moving from Webflow to Framer, my Webflow to Framer service covers the URL map, CMS export and redirects as part of the build.

Questions people ask

How long should I keep 301 redirects after a migration?

At least a year, and longer for URLs that other sites link to. Redirects cost almost nothing to keep.

Should I redirect deleted pages to the homepage?

No. Redirect them to the closest page on the same topic, or return a 410 if nothing matches. Google treats mass redirects to the homepage much like missing pages.

How long does a site take to recover in Google after a migration?

Small sites often settle within a few weeks. Track it page by page in Search Console against your URL map instead of waiting for the total to come back.

Do I need to change URLs when I change platforms?

Usually not. Most builders, Framer included, let you set paths and CMS slugs to match the old site, and keeping them is the safest migration there is.

Sources

1. Site Moves and Migrations, Google Search Central
2. Redirects and Google Search, Google Search Central
3. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Website Crawler, Screaming Frog
4. How to setup redirects to maintain SEO ranking, Framer Help

Working on this?

Tell me what you're building and where it's stuck: book a 30-minute call, email work@utkarshdesign.com or send a brief.

Related

• Webflow to Framer migration without losing rankings
• Framer SEO guide for startup websites
• SaaS website redesign cost and timeline
• Website launch checklist for Framer, Webflow and WordPress