GUIDE · 1 NOVEMBER 2026
Website migration SEO checklist
A migration is the moment a website is most likely to lose search traffic. Most losses come from a few avoidable mistakes: URLs that disappear, metadata that is not carried over and launches that are not checked. This checklist works for any platform; the notes say how Typeroll handles each step.
1. Before you start
- Record a baseline in Search Console: top queries, top pages and the number of indexed pages.
- Crawl the old site.
- Export every public URL, including images and PDFs that rank.
2. Give every URL a destination
Every old URL keeps its path or gets a 301 redirect to the closest equivalent. Never send everything to the home page.
Typeroll: the migration URL inventory records every old URL, and the URL check reports any without a destination.
3. Carry the content over
Titles, meta descriptions, headings, body text, internal links, alt text, canonical tags and structured data.
4. Keep media findable
Keep image URLs or redirect them, and keep file names meaningful.
5. Check the technical basics
robots.txt, sitemaps, noindex only on staging, hreflang, the trailing-slash policy, HTTPS and Core Web Vitals.
Typeroll: a staging or temporary address is kept out of search engines by the platform, so the site itself does not need a noindex setting during the migration.
6. Launch day
Switch DNS only after the new site is verified. Submit the new sitemap, then spot-check redirects and the top pages.
7. The first four weeks
Watch coverage and 404 errors in Search Console, compare queries and clicks with the baseline, and fix redirect chains.
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