Treat any URL, host, or CMS change as a migration: baseline the old site, map every valuable URL, then launch with one-hop 301s and a 30-day watch.
I wrote the long version because teams keep treating this as a slogan instead of a sequence. The short version is still useful: decide what the page or site is actually for, then protect the URLs, the offer, and the HTML Google can fetch.
What this actually means
A website migration checklist for platform moves: baseline, redirect map, staging rules, launch sequence, and the first 30 days in Search Console.
Most of the damage I see is not a missing plugin. It is a missing owner. Someone redesigned the template, dropped a title, hid the copy behind a click, or launched without a redirect map. Then they asked why traffic moved.
The parts I would not skip
- If URLs change, you are in a migration even when people call it a redesign.
- Build redirects from a crawl and Search Console, not from memory.
- Keep staging out of the index and keep one-hop 301s.
- Watch the first 30 days before you decommission the old host.
If you only do one thing, do the inventory first. Crawl the current site. Export Search Console. Write down the URLs that already earn clicks or conversations. Those pages are the contract. Everything else is decoration until that list is safe.
How I would use this
I treat this as a working note, not a manifesto. Use it before you hire, before you migrate, or before you open a new design file. If the current site already works, do not blow it up for a moodboard.
This is an adapted version of a longer guide. The full walkthrough, examples, and implementation notes live on my site.
Read the full article: Website Migration Checklist: How to Move Platforms Without Losing Rankings
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