Before you migrate your website, read this

Your current site frustrates you. It is slow to edit, the plugins fight each other, and the design no longer fits the brand. Moving to a new platform feels like relief. But the site you want to leave holds something you cannot see in the browser: years of search history and working lead paths. A careless migration deletes both in one afternoon, and you find out weeks later when the inquiries stop.

Migration is not a design project with a few technical chores at the end. It is a transfer of value. What you do not inventory, you lose.

Decide first if the move is worth it

The common advice treats migration as an upgrade by default. It is not. A migration costs time, money and risk, and it only pays when the old platform is truly the obstacle. Use these criteria before you commit.

• Worth it when your team cannot update content without a developer, and the platform is the reason.
• Worth it when security updates, plugin conflicts or hosting problems eat time and money every month.
• Worth it when the site cannot grow into what the business needs next: new languages, new markets, a serious content program.
• Worth it when you are already rebuilding the brand and the structure, so the cost of moving is shared.
• Not worth it when the real problem is content, messaging or an unclear offer. A new platform will carry the same weak message.
• Not worth it when the site ranks well, converts well and only needs a visual refresh the current platform can handle.
• Not worth it when nobody has time to own the project in the weeks before and after launch.

If most of your answers land in the second half, improve what you have. That is not a lack of ambition. It is judgment.

What is the first deliverable of a good migration?

The first deliverable of a good migration is not a mockup. It is a spreadsheet. List every URL the current site serves: pages, blog posts, categories, landing pages from old campaigns, PDF files, and image paths other sites link to. Pull them from your sitemap, your analytics, Google Search Console and a crawl of the site. Each source catches pages the others miss.

Then mark each URL with a decision: keep, merge or retire. Next to it, note the traffic it receives and the external links that point to it. Old pages often carry hidden weight. A forgotten blog post may bring more qualified visits than your homepage. You only know if you look.

How do you map every old address to a new one?

Every URL you keep or merge needs a 301 redirect to its new address. A 301 tells search engines the page has moved permanently and passes its history to the new location. Without it, visitors and crawlers hit a dead page, and the ranking you earned starts over.

Three rules keep redirects clean. Redirect to the closest match, not to the homepage. Avoid chains where one redirect points to another. And keep the redirect list alive after launch, because you will find stragglers in the first weeks.

Retired pages deserve a decision too. If a page truly has no replacement, an honest not found page is fine. If it has links and traffic, send it to the page that answers the same intent.

Carry over what search engines and people read

A URL is only the address. The page also carries signals that took years to build. Move each one deliberately.

• Metadata. Titles, meta descriptions and canonical tags for every page you keep. Improve them where needed, but never leave them blank.
• Headings and content. Keep the heading structure that ranks. Rewriting a page that performs well is a choice, not a default.
• Images. Move files with descriptive names and alt text. Compress them and serve modern formats. Broken images on launch day signal neglect to people and search engines alike.
• Internal links. Update links inside your content to point straight to the new addresses, not through redirects.
• Structured data. If the old site had schema for your organization, your articles or your local business, rebuild it.

Protect the lead paths

SEO gets the attention in most migration guides. Leads get forgotten. Yet a form that sends to the wrong inbox can cost more than a lost ranking, because it fails silently. List every form, every button that opens WhatsApp or email, every booking link and chat widget. Test each one on the new site with a real submission, and confirm it arrives where it should, with the right fields and the right notification.

Then check analytics. Install tracking on the new site before launch, confirm that conversions are recorded, and keep the same goal names so you can compare before and after. A migration you cannot measure is a migration you cannot defend.

What happens when you switch the DNS?

The DNS switch is the moment the new site replaces the old one for everyone. Treat it as the last step, never as the test. Build the new site on a preview address and walk through it as a visitor would: every template, every form, every redirect from your spreadsheet, on a phone and on a desktop. Block search engines from indexing the preview so it does not compete with your live site.

Choose a quiet day for the switch, not the morning of a campaign. After launch, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console, check crawl errors and not found reports daily for the first weeks, and close gaps as they appear. The first month decides most of the outcome.

A move that keeps its memory

Go back to the frustration that started this. You wanted a site that is easier to edit and closer to your brand. You can have it without paying with your search history and your leads. The difference is not the platform you pick. It is the inventory you make before you move. A site that keeps its memory keeps its customers.

If you are weighing a migration and want a second opinion, talk to Nicolas.