Basics and Types of Site Migration

If you’ve ever worked with SEO professionals or have taken part in the field yourself, chances are you’ve heard the term “site migration” quite often. This is a basic and common event that can have a major effect on your site’s visibility to search engines.

At SEO Werkz, our SEO services include helping with everything relating to site migrations. Here are some basics on what this means, some common types, and some examples for you to consider.

Migration Basics

Site migration is a broad term that describes anytime a website makes major changes in areas that will affect search engine visibility. These changes may include things like structure, content, coding, performance or UX.

It’s important to note that your own research is vital here – Google’s own documentation on site migration is limited and tends to downplay the degree to which they can result in losses in traffic or revenue. You have to have a successful recovery plan in place with a site migration, which is part of what our pros are here to help with.

Migration Types

There are a few types of site migrations out there. The first is site location changes, which can be organized by those that involve URL changes and those that don’t. Site move migration types include:

• Protocol change: Something like migrating from HTTP to HTTPS
• Subdomain or subfolder change: This is when a business decides to move certain areas into subdomains or subfolders, and it’s common in international SEO
• Domain name change: Generally when a business is rebranding and moving from one domain to another
• Top-level domain name change: When a business launches international websites and needs to move from country code top-level domains to generic top-level domains
• Site structure changes: Changes to site architecture that can have an effect on internal linking and URL structure

There are also a few other types of migration that can be triggered by changes to content, structure, design or platform:

• Replatforming: When a website is moved from one platform or CMS to another, such as moving from WordPress to Magento
• Mobile setup changes: Things like mobile setup moving, app indexing or building a PWA website are often considered partial site migrations
• Content migrations: Rewrites, consolidations or content pruning can have a huge impact on organic search visibility
• Structural changes: Generally caused by minor changes to taxonomy
• Redesigns: This can be anything from design changes to a full site revamp with major code and copy changes
• Hybrid: There are several hybrid forms that combine some of the above in practical ways

For more on-site migrations, or to learn about any of our SEO services, speak to the internet marketing pros at SEO Werkz today.