cypher
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How do you keep SEO rankings during a website migration?

Map every old URL to its new home with a permanent (301) redirect, keep the content and metadata that ranks, and check both before launch and in the weeks after. Lost traffic usually traces back to missing redirects, dropped pages or changed titles, so a complete inventory of what you have today comes first.

Updated

Before launch

  1. Inventory every URLCombine a site crawl, your analytics, your XML sitemap and the pages other sites link to.
  2. Decide each page’s fateKeep, merge or retire. Retired pages still need somewhere sensible to send visitors.
  3. Build the redirect mapOne 301 redirect per old URL, pointing straight at the final destination, with no chains.
  4. Carry the signals acrossTitles, meta descriptions, headings, body text, alt text and structured data should arrive intact.
  5. Fix internal linksPoint links inside the site at the new URLs directly instead of relying on redirects.
  6. Record a benchmarkNote rankings and traffic for your top pages so you can compare after launch.

On launch day

  • Deploy the redirects at the same moment as the new site.
  • Remove staging settings: noindex tags and a robots.txt that blocks search engines are common leftovers.
  • Check canonical tags point at the new URLs.
  • Submit the new XML sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
  • Spot-check your top pages and their old URLs by hand.

In the weeks after

  • Watch crawl errors and 404s, and add redirects for anything missed.
  • Fix redirect chains and loops as soon as you find them.
  • Compare traffic and rankings with your benchmark, page by page.
  • Keep the redirects in place permanently; old links keep arriving for years.

How Cypher handles this

Every redirect kept is part of the migration playbook’s definition of done. Cypher inventories every page before it builds, carries SEO fields across, and checks pages and redirects against the original before you sign off launch.

Questions people ask

Will rankings drop after a migration?

Some movement is normal while search engines recrawl the site. A well-mapped migration usually settles; a large, lasting drop points to missing redirects, removed content or blocked pages.

How long should redirects stay in place?

Treat them as permanent. Bookmarks and links from other sites keep sending visitors to old URLs long after launch.

Should we change our URLs at all?

Only for a good reason, such as a clearer structure. Every changed URL needs a redirect and some time to be recrawled.

301 or 302?

Use a 301 when the move is permanent, which is almost always the case in a migration. A 302 tells search engines the move is temporary.

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