Topic hub · 15 guides
Migration SEO: keeping rankings through a move
This hub covers the SEO side of any website migration: building a redirect map, deciding whether to keep old URLs, protecting backlinks and featured snippets, phasing a large move, handling archives and pagination, what to check in the first week after launch, and how long recovery actually takes. The rules apply to any platform pair, not only WordPress to Lovable, because Google sees URLs and responses, not CMSs.
What this hub covers
- Redirect maps and 301s
- URL structure decisions
- Backlinks and featured snippets
- Archives, tags and pagination
- Launch-week monitoring and recovery
Every guide in this hub
How Long Does Ranking Recovery Take After a Migration?
A clean migration dips for two to four weeks and is back within six. A broken one does not recover on its own, and the difference is visible by day ten.
What to Check in Google Search Console After a Migration
The scheduled routine: launch-week setup, the four damage reports of month one, the settling trends, and the reference answers that make it diagnosis.
Do Canonical Tags Matter After a Website Migration?
Yes, as tie-breakers when versions multiply: self-canonical at the final URL, redirects for gone pages, and the launch check that catches the five classic mistakes.
How to Migrate a Multilingual WordPress Site Safely
A standard migration multiplied per language, plus the hreflang web that breaks invisibly. The translation matrix that makes the whole move verifiable.
What to Do in the First Week After a Migration Goes Live
Day one is redirects and crawling. Day two is analytics and forms. By day seven you should know whether anything is broken, not be guessing at rankings.
How to Keep Your Backlinks When You Change Platforms
Backlinks point at addresses, not at pages. Keep the addresses working and the links keep working, including links to pages you deleted years ago.
What Is a Redirect Map and How Do You Build One?
One row per old URL with its new destination. It is the load-bearing file of any migration, and it is built from a crawl rather than from memory.
How to Test 301 Redirects After a Migration, in Bulk
Spot-checks catch nothing: failures cluster in the long tail. The full-inventory workflow, three pass conditions, and the failure classes with their fixes.
How to Migrate a Website Without Losing SEO in 2026
Preservation is a sequence, not a hope: inventory the live site, keep the URLs you can, map the rest, carry the content whole, then verify by request.
Should You Keep Your Old URLs After a Migration?
Default to keeping them. Every URL you change costs a redirect, a recrawl, and a small permanent risk, and most URL changes buy nothing measurable.
Website migration checklist before you switch
The steps that protect a migration happen before launch. Inventory, backup, baseline, redirect map, staging, index check: the pre-switch checklist in order.
Will I lose Google rankings if I change platforms?
No, not if the move is done right. Here is what actually decides whether you keep your rankings, the real causes of loss, and how long any dip lasts.
What are Core Web Vitals and why do they matter?
Core Web Vitals are Google's three page-experience metrics. Here is what LCP, INP, and CLS measure, the thresholds to hit, and how they affect your SEO.
Do 301 redirects preserve SEO when you switch?
Yes, 301 redirects preserve SEO when every old URL maps one-to-one to its new home. Here is how the signal transfer works and the mistakes that quietly break it.
Related topic hubs
Named across this hub: Google Search Console, 301 redirects, XML sitemaps, Canonical tags, Screaming Frog.
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