Planning a website migration in 2025? The stakes are higher than ever. You’re not just preserving rankings—you’re protecting your presence in both Google Search and AI-generated answers.

Whether you’re changing domains, switching CMS platforms, or redesigning your site — one misstep can erase years of SEO gains and remove you from Google’s AI Overviews or Bing Copilot.

This step-by-step site migration checklist is built for SEOs, developers, and marketers who want to avoid traffic drops, preserve AI visibility, and maintain SEO equity.

What Is a Site Migration?

A site migration refers to any major change to your site’s structure, domain, platform, or URLs that impacts how it performs in organic and AI-powered search.

Types of migrations include:

  • Domain name changes
  • Moving from HTTP to HTTPS
  • URL structure changes
  • CMS migrations (e.g., WordPress to Webflow)
  • Full website redesign
  • Merging microsites into a single domain
  • Switching to mobile-first or responsive design
  • Hosting/server changes

Each of these impacts SEO. Your job is to protect both traditional rankings and AI search visibility.

Step 1: Pre-Migration Planning

1. Crawl and Inventory Your Website

Use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to:

  • Export all live URLs
  • Capture title tags, meta descriptions, H1s
  • Extract canonical tags and schema
  • Map internal link structure and click depth

This becomes your baseline to map redirects and ensure nothing critical is lost.

2. Benchmark SEO and AI Visibility

Use SEMrush and Google Search Console to benchmark:

  • Organic traffic by URL
  • Indexed page counts
  • Top keyword rankings
  • AI Overview citations (manually check branded and informational queries)

Set clear KPIs like: “Maintain 95% of traffic and AI citations within 60 days.”

3. Build a 301 Redirect Map

  • Use 1:1 redirects wherever possible
  • Avoid redirect chains and loops
  • Use only 301 redirects (not 302)
  • Test your redirect logic in staging
  • Keep track of what schema should be preserved during redirects

4. Preserve Structured Data

Structured data affects your visibility in AI answers.

  • Validate FAQPage, Article, and Product schemas
  • Use Screaming Frog to check schema coverage
  • Ensure structured data stays valid post-migration
  • Align schema with pages likely to be cited in AI summaries

5. Test Your Staging Site

Before go-live:

  • Block indexing with robots.txt and meta noindex

  • Crawl the site using Screaming Frog to validate:

    • Canonical tags
    • Page speed and Core Web Vitals
    • Structured data
    • Internal link paths
    • JavaScript-rendered content

Step 2: Launch Execution

On launch day, treat this as an SEO-critical moment.

What to do:

  • Go live with all 301 redirects
  • Update internal links and canonical tags
  • Submit updated XML sitemaps in Google Search Console
  • Use the Change of Address tool (if domain changed)
  • Confirm structured data, hreflangs, and mobile tags are intact
  • Monitor bot activity and crawl errors in GSC

Step 3: Post-Migration Monitoring (First 4 Weeks)

Track everything closely post-launch.

Watch for:

  • 404 and crawl errors in Google Search Console
  • Indexation shift (old pages disappearing, new ones appearing)
  • Keyword drops in SEMrush
  • Traffic fluctuations by URL
  • Loss of citations in AI Overviews or Featured Snippets
  • Broken internal links or redirect chains
  • JavaScript or rendering issues on migrated templates

If performance drops, re-fetch key pages in GSC, review redirect logic, and update schema or metadata.

Step 4: Reoptimize and Rebuild

Post-migration is the best time to improve what didn’t survive the move.

Here’s how:

  • Update and optimize underperforming content
  • Improve titles, meta descriptions, and structured data
  • Rebuild broken or lost internal links
  • Reach out to key referrers to update backlinks
  • Keep redirects active for at least 12 months
  • Monitor AI visibility monthly to ensure growth beyond baseline

Final Thoughts

Migrating a website in 2025 is about more than just SEO. You’re migrating your search identity — across both traditional search and AI systems like Google’s AI Overviews.

Use trusted tools like Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and SEMrush. Plan carefully. Monitor closely. And treat your migration as an opportunity to future-proof your site.

Your visibility depends on it.