A Checklist For Successful Website Migration

Post written by

Kenny Tripura

Co-Founder and Managing Director at Edkent Media, a boutique digital marketing agency servicing local, startups and enterprise companies.


Are you in the process of migrating your website but aren’t sure how to handle it to minimize compromising security, SEO and functionality? Then you need to follow a website migration checklist to ensure you don’t create problems down the line.

This checklist will help you formulate an actionable plan, maintain healthy website SEO, and avoid security risks from potential hackers. With so much at stake, it’s a no-brainer to use the info in this article to create a custom website migration checklist of your own.

Monitor your migration.

Losing traffic after your migration can lead you to pull your hair out in confusion. Use traffic monitoring software like Google Analytics to closely monitor website performance before and after the migration. Monitor each page carefully to determine if there are performance issues after the migration.

Paying attention to traffic can help you spot migration errors that otherwise could be difficult to notice. Big drop-offs in traffic are easily noticeable, but finding the error will take some investigation time.

Write new metadata.

Use the migration as an opportunity to optimize your SEO by updating your metatags. WordPress users can somewhat automate this process by using plugins. However, writing them manually allows you to add the details that can make the difference between a low and high click-through rate.

Metatags are the text that search engine visitors see before laying eyes on your website. Therefore, you must set the right first impression, which increases the chances of getting visitors to take the action you want. This might be to fill out an email capture form or buy a product right away.

Metatags that produce high click-through rates usually have some intrigue or marketing element. The tags should strike a sense of curiosity in the searcher so that they are interested in checking out the webpage. Metatags should also be descriptive. Searchers are after webpages that closely match their search string.

Identify the top backlinks.

It’s inevitable that you’ll lose some backlink juice after the website migration, but you can minimize that by going after the top backlinks. Take a look at your link profile, and identify the ones that are from high-authority sites with relevant anchor text.

Create a list with webmaster contact information, allowing you to request an update so the links direct to your new website address. To create the list, simply open up a spreadsheet and create separate columns for website URL, webmaster email address and link information. The latter could be info on the anchor text and specific webpage the link is pointing to. The webmaster info can typically be located on the "contact us" page of a website. However, if you only find contact info for other departments, then you can request the webmaster info.

Webmasters will likely be open to this request because they wouldn’t want a broken link lurking around on their website. You can also use this opportunity to acquire new backlinks to boost SEO.

Update Google Search Console.

Once the website migration is complete, immediately go to the Google Search Console and update your website info. This step can only be performed post-migration because a verification step is required.

Notifying Google of your migration allows the Google Index to be updated. The update status is good for 180 days, which is more than enough time for the Google bots to visit your website.

Update links on your online properties.

Think of every location where you used your old website address, and change it to the new one. This includes social media accounts, PPC campaigns and videos. Pointing customers to an old address that isn’t active is one of the fastest ways to miss out on new leads. You’ll also frustrate potential leads that may have a negative first impression of your brand. This could be hard to overturn in the future.

Protect your site while it's under construction.

A CMS like WordPress allows you to use features to automatically limit access while the migration process is in progress. However, your webmaster can directly access the htaccss and htpasswd files to manually set restrictions to any folder of your website. Don’t skip this step; you’ll be surprised by the number of people out there ready to mess with your website when it’s vulnerable.

Share with your audience.

Set a date for the migration, and share the important dates with your customer base. Every avenue of communication that’s available to you should be used to share details of the migration. That way, customers will know where to find you moving forward and that it’s still the same company at the new address.


The website migration checklist in this article is just a list of essentials that should be completed by any webmaster. However, take a closer look at your specific website for tasks that must be completed for a smooth transition. Perhaps it’s a good idea to start small by splitting the migration into steps. This minimizes the potential for huge problems that could result in significant traffic and financial loss.


Co-Founder and Managing Director at Edkent Media, a boutique digital marketing agency servicing local, startups and enterprise companies....
