SEO migration is the strategy of preserving rankings and traffic during major site changes. Done wrong, you lose 30-80% of traffic; recovery takes 6-12 months.
Types
1. Platform. 2. URL structure. 3. Domain. 4. HTTPS. 5. Redesign.
Preparation
1. Document every URL (Screaming Frog). 2. Top pages from GSC. 3. Backlink profile. 4. Ranking baseline.
URL mapping
Old URL → New URL in a sheet. Keep URLs unchanged when possible.
301 redirects
Not 302. Permanent and passes signals. .htaccess or Nginx config.
Sitemap.xml
New sitemap submitted to GSC.
Internal linking
Find & Replace for all links.
Schema and meta
Carry over fully.
Staging tests
Screaming Frog before and after.
Migration day
Lowest-traffic window. 4 hours: migrate, test, update sitemap, GSC.
Post-migration
Monitor for 4 weeks. 404s, traffic, rankings. First 2 weeks drop is normal.
Fixing 404s
GSC \"Not found\". 301 each.
HTTPS
All resources HTTPS. HSTS.
Domain change
Hardest. GSC \"Change of address\". Keep old domain a year.
Sayt.uz
2024 PHP framework → custom CMS. 3 months of prep. 10% drop for 2 weeks, +15% after 8 weeks.