Website Migration SEO Checklist: Keep Your Rankings When You Switch Platforms

Every platform move, whether Webflow to Framer, WordPress to Next.js or Wix to Webflow, is a manual rebuild. No tool carries your SEO across for you. Search engines see a new set of pages, and the only things telling them it's the same site are your redirects, your metadata and your content. This checklist covers all of it in order, with the platform-specific details for Webflow, Framer and Next.js in one place. Each section links to a deeper guide when you need the full how-to.

What is a website migration SEO checklist?

A website migration SEO checklist is an ordered list of tasks that protect rankings and traffic when you change platform, URL structure, domain or design. It splits the work into before launch, launch day and after launch, so nothing that affects search is left to chance.

Migrations come in a few types, and the risk rises with each change you combine:

If you can, change one thing at a time. When you can't, this checklist matters even more. For domain moves, read our guide to domain change SEO; for moving a blog from a subdomain, see subdomain to subfolder migration.

What should you do before a website migration?

Before a website migration, record how the current site performs, list every URL that matters, decide what happens to each one and prepare the redirects. Most of the SEO work happens here, weeks before launch.

1. 1

   Benchmark performance

   Export Search Console clicks, impressions and top queries by page for the last 12 months, plus analytics landing-page data and conversions. Save it. Our pre-migration benchmark guide lists every report to pull.

2. 2

   Crawl the old site

   Run a full crawl to capture every live URL, status code, title, description, canonical and H1. Include blog, tag, category, pagination and asset URLs.

3. 3

   Pull backlink targets

   Export pages with external links from your SEO tool. A page with no traffic but strong links still needs a redirect.

4. 4

   Audit the content

   Decide for each URL: keep, merge, redirect or remove. Don't migrate thin pages just because they exist.

5. 5

   Build the redirect map

   Map every old URL with traffic, links or internal references to its closest new URL. Use our 301 redirect map template with priority scoring.

6. 6

   Map metadata and schema

   Plan where titles, descriptions, canonicals, structured data and Open Graph fields live in the new CMS. See migrating metadata, schema and Open Graph.

7. 7

   Plan forms and tracking

   List every form, pixel, tag and event. Migrations lose leads quietly when a form or conversion event is forgotten; our guide to migrating forms and lead capture covers the checks.

How do you build a redirect map without missing pages?

You build a complete redirect map by combining URLs from three sources: a crawl of the old site, Search Console's pages report and your backlink tool. Then you map each URL to its closest equivalent and score it by traffic and links.

Crawls miss orphan pages, Search Console misses pages without impressions, and backlink tools find old URLs nobody remembers. Merge the three lists and remove duplicates. For each URL, choose a target that answers the same intent: an old pricing page goes to the new pricing page, not the homepage. Redirecting everything to the homepage is treated much like a 404 by search engines, so reserve it for pages with no real equivalent.

• One hop only. Old URL to final URL, never through an intermediate page.
• Permanent redirects. Use 301 or 308 for moves that are permanent.
• Match intent. Map to the most similar page, not the closest folder.
• Patterns for families. Use wildcard or pattern rules for blog or category URL structures.
• Keep the sheet. It becomes your QA checklist on launch day.

The full method, columns and priority scoring are in our redirect map template. If you are redesigning rather than replatforming, our guide to building a redirect map for a redesign is closer to your case.

How do redirects work in Webflow, Framer and Next.js?

Webflow and Framer manage redirects in site settings, with support for pattern rules. Next.js handles redirects in code, through the redirects function in next.config or in middleware for dynamic cases. Each needs testing after publishing.

Step-by-step guides: 301 redirects in Webflow, redirects in Framer and redirects in Next.js. Google's own guidance on site moves with URL changes is worth reading once before you start.

What carries over besides redirects?

Besides redirects, you need to carry over metadata, structured data, internal links, images and their alt text, hreflang for multilingual sites, and the content itself. A page that redirects correctly but loses its title, schema or half its copy can still drop.

• Titles and descriptions. Export them with the content; don't regenerate them from headings.
• Canonicals. Self-referencing canonicals on every page of the new site, pointing at the new URLs.
• Structured data. Organization, Article, FAQ, Product or Breadcrumb schema rebuilt in the new templates.
• Images. Re-host images; Webflow CSV exports point images at the Webflow CDN, and Webflow's CSV import turns rich-text images into placeholders, so images inside posts need a separate pass. Our image SEO migration guide covers file names and alt text.
• Internal links. Update links in body copy to the new URLs so you don't rely on redirects internally.
• Locales. Keep hreflang pairs and locale URL patterns consistent; see migration SEO for multilingual sites.

What should you check on launch day?

On launch day, deploy the redirects, publish the new sitemap, confirm that the site is indexable, and test that every priority URL, form and tracking event works. Do it with the redirect sheet open as your checklist.

1. Remove any noindex tags, password protection or staging robots rules from the new site.
2. Publish redirects and test every tier 1 URL and a sample of the rest from your sheet for a single 301 or 308 hop to the right page.
3. Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console, and keep the old sitemap available briefly so Google recrawls redirected URLs.
4. Check canonicals, titles and descriptions on each template type.
5. Validate structured data on key templates with Google's Rich Results Test.
6. Submit every form and confirm the lead reaches your CRM with source data.
7. Fire every conversion event and confirm analytics and ad pixels receive it.
8. Run a crawl of the new site to catch 404s, redirect chains and missing metadata.

For a broader launch list that also covers performance and accessibility, see our technical SEO checklist for new website launches.

What should you monitor after a migration?

After a migration, monitor Search Console coverage, clicks by page, crawl errors and redirect behavior weekly for at least a month, and compare against your benchmark. Some fluctuation is normal while Google recrawls; sustained drops on specific pages point to a fix.

Our post-migration monitoring guide has the week-by-week list. If redirects stack up over time, read how to find and fix redirect chains.

Why does traffic drop after a website migration?

Traffic usually drops after a migration because of missing or wrong redirects, lost content or metadata, accidental noindex tags, or a slower site. A small, short dip while Google recrawls is common; a large or lasting drop almost always has a specific cause you can find.

Start with the pages that lost the most clicks against your benchmark. Check each one: does the old URL redirect in one hop to the right page, is the new page indexable, did the copy, title or internal links change? Domain moves add their own risks; a Webflow forum thread on a 90 percent drop after a domain move shows how badly a move can go when redirects and Search Console steps are skipped. Our guide to why traffic drops after a website migration covers diagnosis, and website migration recovery is a 30-day plan if the launch already went wrong.

How do you keep AI Overview and ChatGPT citations through a migration?

You keep AI citations by preserving the pages and passages that get cited: same URLs or clean redirects, the same direct answers near the top of each section, and the same structured data. AI engines cite specific content, so changing it carelessly can cost citations even when rankings hold.

Before migrating, find which pages are cited by AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity for your key questions, and treat them like your top-traffic pages. Keep their short answers, tables and FAQs intact, and avoid rewriting them during the move. Our guide to migrating without losing AI Overview and ChatGPT citations explains how to track this before and after launch.

Which guides should you read next?

Use these guides depending on where you are in the migration. Each goes deeper than this checklist on one part of the work.