SEO and GEO ready website migration

Without specialist SEO migration support, important technical and content-related issues can be missed during the planning and launch process. This can lead to a loss of rankings and a drop in the enquiries or revenue generated through search.

Common problems include broken links, missing metadata, indexing issues, changes to site structure and content that search engines struggle to interpret. These issues are often easier and more cost-effective to address before launch than after a website has gone live.

Organisations that rely on visibility in AI-powered search experiences may also benefit from GEO migration support. Building the right technical and content foundations into the new site can help search engines and AI tools access and reference your content more effectively following the migration.

Several common issues can affect search performance during a website migration. As an experienced SEO migration agency, we've seen the following mistakes occur most often:

• Missed or mismanaged redirects
• Failing to migrate content
• Failing to transfer title tags or metadata
• Poorly thought-out site structures
• Removal of key SEO landing pages
• Erroneous robots.txt disallow directives
• Non- SEO- friendly internal linking or navigation
• Incorrect analytics or tracking implementation 

Our SEO migration support helps identify and resolve these issues before launch, reducing the risk of rankings, traffic and reporting being affected.

Our SEO and GEO migration support is delivered over four key phases:

1. SEO and GEO design review phase

• Review the new site’s content structure and sitemap
• Review the new site’s page designs from an SEO and GEO perspective
• Audit the new site’s planned navigation / internal linking structure
• Check for on-page trust earners and EEAT factors

2. Pre-launch SEO and GEO phase

• Benchmarking of current ranking, traffic and revenue performance
• Crawls of current site and new site staging environment
• 301 redirect mapping of old URLs to new on a page-for-page basis
• Full pre-launch technical SEO/GEO audit of staging site
• Setup of Google Analytics and other tracking to ensure data continuity

3. Post-launch SEO and GEO phase

• Redirect checks to ensure all is working as mapped/planned
• Full post-launch technical SEO/GEO audit
• New site XML sitemap submission
• Google Search Console change of address (if changing domain)
• Disavow file re-submission (where required)

4. SEO and GEO success checks and monitoring phase

• Page re-indexing status checks
• Rankings and organic visibility review and monitoring
• Traffic and conversion monitoring via GA4
• Additional technical SEO checks where required

The length of an SEO migration depends on the size and complexity of the project. A simple website refresh may require relatively little migration support, while a large replatforming project with thousands of pages will typically involve more planning, testing and post-launch monitoring.

We align our SEO migration services with your web design and development timelines, providing support at the points where it's needed most. This allows us to work alongside your wider project team, whether you're managing a fast-paced launch or a longer-term website transformation programme. 

As search behaviour continues to evolve, it's important that a new website is designed with both search engines and AI platforms in mind.

Our GEO migration services include a range of AI readiness checks, including:

• LLM-friendly site structure checks
• GEO content structure audits
• Surfacing brand reputation and credibility signals
• LLM bot accessibility checks
• LLMS.txt file optimisation
• Schema and structured data recommendations

We can also offer ongoing GEO services on a retained basis, following the completion of your website migration project.

We’re experienced in SEO and website projects and can provide both lead generation and eCommerce migration support across many CMS platforms, including:

• Shopify
• Adobe (Magento)
• BigCommerce
• Scayle
• Kentico
• Umbraco
• WordPress
• Sitecore
• Drupal
• WooCommerce

We've delivered SEO and GEO migration support for organisations across a wide range of sectors. While every migration project is different, our experience includes:

• Travel
• Professional services
• Finance
• Retail
• Fashion
• Health and wellbeing
• Pets

Whether you're managing a website redesign, platform migration or domain change, the principles of a successful SEO website migration remain the same. We tailor our approach to your industry and business goals to help maintain visibility throughout the transition.

Yes. We regularly support international website migrations and work closely with businesses operating across multiple countries and languages.

Our international SEO specialists can advise on domain and URL structures, international targeting, content localisation and hreflang implementation as part of a wider SEO website migration. We help ensure search engines can understand which pages should be shown to users in different regions, while maintaining visibility across your target markets.

Our SEO migration support is designed to help manage complexity and reduce risk throughout the project.

Yes. While many clients choose to combine our SEO migration services with IDHL's web design and technology expertise, we also work alongside in-house teams and third-party agencies on a regular basis.

Our SEO and GEO migration support is designed to fit into your existing project structure. We collaborate closely with designers, developers, project managers and other stakeholders, providing clear recommendations and technical guidance throughout the migration process. Whether your website is being built internally or by an external partner, we can work alongside your team to help ensure SEO and GEO considerations are addressed at every stage.

Yes, some fluctuation is normal following a website migration, even when the project has been carefully planned and executed. Search engines need time to crawl and reindex updated URLs and content so rankings and traffic can vary during the weeks after launch.

In many cases, this stabilisation period lasts between one and six weeks, although it can be longer for larger or more complex websites. As part of our SEO migration support, we monitor indexing, visibility and traffic after launch to help identify any issues and track how performance is progressing

We measure the success of an SEO and GEO migration by comparing performance before, during and after launch. This helps us understand whether visibility has been maintained and identify any areas that require further attention.

Key metrics we monitor include:

• SEO rankings and organic visibility
• GEO visibility across AI-powered search experiences
• Organic traffic levels
• Leads, enquiries and revenue generated through organic channels
• Indexing and re-indexing status of key pages
• Core Web Vitals
• Page speed and overall site performance

As part of our SEO migration support, we benchmark these metrics before launch and continue monitoring them after go-live to help track performance and identify any issues as quickly as possible.