Why a migration is riskier than a redesign
A redesign that keeps the same URLs is mostly a visual risk: it might look worse for a week while you fix bugs. A migration, where the site moves to a new domain, a new platform, or both, is a different kind of risk, because every page's web address can change. Google has to rediscover and re-index every one of those pages, and if the connection between old and new isn't made explicit, the search visibility built up over years can reset to close to zero.
The good news is this is a solved problem with a known checklist. Google publishes its own recommended process for exactly this (developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes), and the failures that actually hurt rankings are almost always a skipped step from that list, not bad luck.
Before you touch anything live
Do the prep work on the new site while the old one keeps running. Build and populate the new site fully: content, images, forms, and a TLS certificate for HTTPS all need to be in place before launch, not added after. Set up Google Search Console for the new site's domain or subdomain now too, even before it goes live, since verification can take time to propagate and you don't want that holding up launch day.
The step people skip most: build a URL map. Go through your old site (Search Console's performance report and your analytics both show which pages actually get traffic) and write down exactly which old URL becomes which new URL. This list is what your redirects get built from, and it's much harder to reconstruct after the old site is gone than before.
If your current site fails more than one of these, a redesign is usually cheaper than patching it. Here's what that looks like. Website redesign.
The redirect rule that matters most
Every old URL needs a permanent (301 or 308) server-side redirect to its new equivalent, not a blanket redirect that sends everything to the new homepage. A redirect from an old service page straight to the new site's homepage tells Google "this specific page is gone," which throws away the ranking signal that page had built up. A redirect to the matching new page tells Google "this page moved," which largely preserves it.
Keep redirect chains short. Google's own guidance flags chains longer than about 5 hops as a problem, and every hop in between wastes some of the crawl budget and slows down the page for an actual visitor waiting on it to load.
The day of the move
Change only one variable at a time if you can help it. Moving domain and redesigning the whole layout in the same weekend makes it much harder to tell which change caused a problem if rankings dip afterward. If a full redesign has to happen too, do the move first, confirm it's stable, then redesign on the new domain.
- Point DNS and go live on the new platform with redirects already active, not added after the fact
- If the domain itself changed, submit a Change of Address in Search Console (this tool exists specifically for domain moves, not path changes on the same domain)
- Submit the new sitemap to Search Console right away so Google has a direct list of what to crawl next
- Make sure every new page has a self-referencing canonical tag, and update hreflang tags if the site has translated versions
After launch: what to actually watch
Search visibility doesn't move instantly, it moves as Google recrawls the site, which takes days to weeks depending on how large the site is and how often it was already being crawled. Check the Index Coverage report in Search Console for a rise in errors (particularly 404s on URLs that should have redirected) and compare the Performance report's click and impression totals against the same period on the old domain, not against last week, since search traffic has natural week-to-week noise.
Keep every redirect live for at least a year. Google's own recommendation is exactly that window, long enough for it to fully recrawl and re-associate the ranking signal with the new URLs. Pulling redirects early, often because "the migration is done" and someone decommissions the old server, is one of the more common ways a site loses ground months after a migration that otherwise went fine.
Don't forget the parts outside your own site: update the links in your Google Business Profile, your social profiles, and any directory listings to point at the new URLs, and if you're running ads, update the destination URLs there too.
When it's worth having someone else run this
A migration touching a handful of pages on a simple site is a manageable weekend project if you follow the checklist above in order. A migration on a site with dozens of service and location pages, or one where the domain itself is changing, has enough places to make a costly mistake that most contractors are better off not being the one holding the checklist during it.
Every site built under the Run ($97/mo) or Grow ($297/mo) plans includes migration and redirect work as part of keeping the site current, on top of the 14-day trial build (the $2,500 implementation waived for plans started by October 21, 2026), so a future platform or domain move doesn't turn into a solo project with your search rankings on the line.
Questions that come up
How long will my rankings be affected during a migration?
A small, temporary dip over a few weeks while Google recrawls the new site is normal and usually recovers on its own. A drop that persists past six to eight weeks with the redirects in place usually means something in the technical setup needs a fix.
Do I need a Change of Address in Search Console if I'm only redesigning, not changing domains?
No. Change of Address is specifically for a domain or subdomain change. If you're keeping the same domain and just changing the design or platform, redirects and a fresh sitemap submission are the steps that matter, not Change of Address.
What happens if I forget to redirect some pages?
Those specific URLs return a 404, and any ranking or backlinks pointing at them stop counting toward the new site. It's usually recoverable if caught within a few weeks by adding the missing redirects, but the longer it sits, the more of that signal is lost for good.