Website migration services
The full website migration service, from planning and budget to launch day.
•SEO MIGRATION
SEO Migration Services
Move to a new platform, domain or URL structure without losing the search traffic you already paid for.
Protect the rankings, indexed pages and backlink value your site already has. We crawl the current site, map every URL before templates are finalized, test staging before launch and track recovery against your own baseline.
SEO Migration Services
Get your SEO Migration strategy today
•Why Suff Digital
Why choose us for the search side of a migration.
SEO migration services protect the search traffic at risk during a platform, domain or URL change. As your SEO website migration consultant, we start before the URL structure is decided, document every requirement and stay through launch checks and post-launch monitoring.
Speak with a specialist •
Matt Suffoletto
Founder & CEO
Kriszta
Chief Operating Officer
Tony
Partnership Director
What Our SEO Migration Services Include
SEO migration protects rankings, indexed pages and backlink value when a website moves. For the wider move, read what a website migration involves.
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•A record of where you rank today
Rankings, impressions, indexed pages and sessions for every URL before anything changes. Without that file there is nothing to compare the new site against.
•Priority given to your most linked pages
We match every site that links to you with the page it links to. Those pages become fixed points the new structure works around.
•Canonical and language tags carried across
Canonical tags tell Google which version of a page to keep, and language tags tell it who each version is for. We specify and check both.
•A reason for every page Google leaves out
We compare the pages Google has indexed against the pages you meant it to index. Every missing page gets a named cause.
•Internal links pointed at the new addresses
Every internal link is rewritten to its final destination during the build, so the new site never reaches its own pages through a redirect.
•The change of address filed with Google
Property setup, verification and the change of address filing sit inside the launch plan, so it is completed before the launch window closes.
•What goes wrong
Search traffic risks during a site migration
These are the six failures this work exists to prevent. Each is cheap to stop beforehand and expensive to find afterwards.
Diagnose my site •01
The redirect list gets written in launch week
By launch week the new site already has its URL structure, so the redirect list can only follow it. Anything the export missed gets left out, and the loss shows up in your traffic reports two weeks later.
02
The URL list comes from your sitemap
Your sitemap lists the pages your CMS knows about today. It says nothing about the page that earned links five years ago, the old address that still ranks, or the PDF a journalist linked to.
03
Page titles and descriptions vanish in the export
Page titles, descriptions, canonical tags and the markup that puts star ratings in search results often sit in a plugin the export ignores. The new templates fall back to defaults, the pages still look fine, and rankings soften with nothing to blame.
04
Redirects that land somewhere close enough
An old page gets pointed at a category page instead of its real replacement. Your monitoring shows green because the redirect fired, but Google reads it as a dead end and drops the page anyway.
05
Two versions of the same page end up in Google
The old address and the new one both stay in Google, usually because the redirect points one way and the canonical tag points the other. Two versions compete for the same search and neither wins.
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The pages your backlinks point at get left behind
The pages with the most links are rarely the pages with the most visitors, so a list ordered by traffic pushes them to the bottom. Map those badly and you lose authority that took years to earn.
Our SEO Migration Process
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Phase 01
Week 1
We record where you rank today
Rankings, impressions, indexed pages and sessions for every URL, plus the sites linking to each one. This is the baseline the project gets judged against. Treat the weeks shown here as an estimate rather than a final schedule, because the dates we commit to are set in your proposal.
Phase 02
Weeks 1-2
We crawl the site for hidden URLs
A full crawl of your live site, joined to Search Console and backlink data, gives us the real list of what you serve. It regularly turns up addresses your CMS cannot export.
Phase 03
Week 2
You approve the URL map and we lock it
We write the map as a specification, walk your team through it and freeze it. From then on the build targets the map instead of the map chasing the build. Pages with no replacement get retired, merged or rewritten.
Phase 04
Weeks 3-4
We test the new site before it goes live
We crawl your staging site and read what it tells Google: indexing instructions, canonical tags, language tags, pagination and the page titles the new templates produce. Faults are grouped by template, because one fix repairs the whole layout.
Phase 05
Launch day
Launch day and the change of address
Redirects go live and the sitemap goes back in. Where the domain has changed we file the change of address with Google, and we check status codes hour by hour.
Phase 06
Weeks 5-8
We compare results to your baseline every week
Each week we set rankings, indexed pages and sessions against the file from step one. Anything that has not come back gets a named cause: an unmapped URL, a bad redirect, or a template fault.
•The rankings you already own
SEO migration protects existing demand before launch traffic is put at risk.
Your rankings, your impressions and the sites linking to you already exist, and you already paid for them. A platform, domain or URL change is the one moment they can all be lost at once. Our SEO migration services front-load the list and the map.
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You keep the traffic that was already arriving, because the pages earning it are mapped first
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You keep the value of links you cannot buy back, because link strength sets the order of the map
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You can prove what happened, because the comparison runs against numbers captured before the move
•What the move puts at risk
Four things a migration can cost you, and what we do about each one.
Before launch we agree in writing the thresholds that would make the move a failure, and who decides to roll back if the launch window breaches them.
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Rankings and traffic. Unmapped URLs and redirects that land nowhere useful are both visible on staging, while they are cheap to fix
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Backlink value. We order the map by the strength of the links pointing at each page, not by visits alone
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Indexed pages. A test site reaching Google, or a stray tag telling Google not to index, stays silent for days
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Your history. Analytics setup, goal tracking and Search Console access decide whether you can prove what happened
SEO Migration Deliverables
Everything below is a document you keep, in a format your team can open and check.
Month One
Before anything moves
✓Pre-move SEO baseline — Rankings, impressions, sessions and linking domains for every URL, as they stood before the first change.
✓Every URL your site actually serves — Including the ones missing from your sitemap, scored by traffic and by backlink value.
Months 2-3
Build requirements
✓The URL map you approved — One old address, one destination, locked before the build starts, with the retire and merge decisions written down.
✓A specification for every template — What each template must tell Google about indexing, canonical versions, language and pagination.
✓The internal links that need repointing — Every link still aimed at an old address, with its final destination next to it.
Ongoing
How we prove your rankings held
✓The staging test report — Your new site and your current one crawled side by side, with faults grouped by template.
✓Weekly comparison against your baseline — Rankings, indexed pages and sessions set against the file we captured before the move, with every change traced to a cause.
•Compare options
Compare SEO Migration Services
Compare SEO migration services by whether the URL map is finished early, staging is checked before launch and results are measured against a pre-move baseline.
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URL list built from a crawl, not your sitemap
Us
PartialAgencies
Freelance
In-house
URL map finished before the new site is built
Us
Agencies
Freelance
In-house
Pages ranked by backlink value as well as traffic
Us
Agencies
Freelance
In-house
Redirects checked for relevance, not just status
Us
PartialAgencies
Freelance
In-house
Indexing instructions tested on staging
Us
PartialAgencies
Freelance
In-house
Internal links rewritten during the build
Us
Agencies
Freelance
In-house
Change of address filed and verified
Us
Agencies
PartialFreelance
In-house
Weekly comparison against a pre-move baseline
Us
Agencies
Freelance
In-house
Suff Digital
Other agencies
Freelancers
In-house / DIY
URL list built from a crawl, not your sitemap
Partial
URL map finished before the new site is built
Pages ranked by backlink value as well as traffic
Redirects checked for relevance, not just status
Partial
Indexing instructions tested on staging
Partial
Internal links rewritten during the build
Change of address filed and verified
Partial
Weekly comparison against a pre-move baseline
Get the URL map before the new URLs are finalized.
SEO migration services do the most good before the new URL structure exists.
•Frequently asked questions
Common Questions
Four things. Unlock the domain and clear the transfer lock that applies for sixty days after a registration or a previous transfer. Get the authorization code the registrar issues. Make sure the administrative contact email is one you can read, because approval goes there. And write your DNS records down first: a transfer does not carry your email routing or verification records. The search side is separate work, because every old URL still needs mapping to the new domain.
•Ready for real growth?
Find out what your move puts at risk.
Tell us the domain, the platform you are moving to and when it launches. We will come back with the gaps we can see from outside. If you would rather we ran the whole move than the search side alone, that costs $2,500 to $75,000, and the lower end is small sites and startups. How we scope, price and run a full migration explains what puts a project at either end.
✓A free review of what the move risks
✓Clear scope before work starts
✓We can support your build team
2,500+ businesses served
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•Related services
Services that support Website Migration.
Pre-existing SEO issues before migration
Fixing how Google crawls and indexes the site you are moving off.
Web design and development services
Design and build, with the URL map treated as a requirement from the start.
Ecommerce replatforming services
Products, customers and orders moved around your trading calendar.
SEO Migration Reviews