SEO-Safe Website Migration
The SEO layer of a site migration executed by the developers doing the move — redirect maps built page-by-page, equity audited, rankings monitored before and after — not a bolt-on checklist from a third party.
Migrations are where SEO goes to die quietly: redesigns that change every URL and ship zero redirects, platform moves that flatten category trees, "improvements" that drop canonicals and pagination. The damage surfaces 30 days later in Search Console, when the previous vendor is paid and gone. SEO-safe migration means the search layer is part of the build, not an afterthought.
This engagement is the search-equity layer of a move — any direction: platform-to-platform, HTTP to HTTPS, domain changes, information-architecture overhauls. Page-by-page redirect maps, canonical decisions made per template, the equity audit that says which URLs actually carry traffic before the IA gets redesigned around vanity, and monitoring that catches breakage in week one instead of month two.
The honest limits: no migration is zero-risk, and anyone claiming otherwise has never watched a redirect chain age. What this delivers is the risk honestly enumerated, the high-equity URLs protected first, and the post-launch window watched daily. 2026 project pricing for migration SEO work runs $1,500–$10,000 scaled by catalog size — a rounding error against the traffic it protects.
What the engagement covers
- Pre-migration equity audit: every URL ranked by traffic and links — the map of what must not break
- Page-by-page redirect map: 1:1 where possible, grouped honestly where not, zero silent 404s
- Canonical policy per template on the new stack, decided before build, verified after
- IA change review: what the new structure gains, what it risks, signed off in writing
- Launch-window monitoring: crawl, indexation and error checks daily through week two
- +30-day traffic reconciliation report — per-URL, against the pre-migration baseline
Honest limits
What this is deliberately not.
Not this: "Zero ranking impact" promises — migrations carry risk; the work is minimizing and watching it, honestly
Not this: Post-hoc rescue pricing on other people's botched moves — audit first, then scope; some damage is permanent
Not this: Migrations without development access — the map has to ship in the build to work
Not this: Pretending a redesign is "just cosmetic" — URL, template and internal-link changes are SEO events
Questions · SEO migration
Asked before building.
Migration SEO work prices $1,500–$10,000 in 2026 project pricing, set by URL count and how deeply the information architecture changes. Domain moves and platform migrations with intact structure sit lower; IA overhauls on large catalogs sit higher. Fixed quote after the URL inventory — counted, not estimated.
Yes, with discipline: 1:1 redirects where URLs change, canonicals correct on day one, internal links updated rather than relying on redirects forever, and the high-equity pages verified individually. Rankings wobble for weeks regardless; the work is making the wobble temporary instead of permanent.
Maybe less of it — but template changes, internal-link changes and content consolidation are all ranking events even at stable URLs. The pre-flight version (equity audit plus change review) prices lower; the honest scoping question is how much of the page structure and linking actually survives the redesign.
Sometimes recoverable, sometimes not — the audit answers which. If redirects are missing but the old URLs still return something other than 404s, equity is often recoverable; if months of 404s have passed, some loss is permanent. Rescue work scopes from an honest audit, including the "here is the part nobody can fix" section.
Related: all SEO services · rate benchmarks · the vetting guide.
Also in this section
Technical SEO Audit · WordPress SEO · Shopify SEO · Ecommerce SEO · Local SEO · Core Web Vitals Optimization · Schema Markup Implementation · SEO Penalty Recovery
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