Website migration SEO and launch assurance

A redesign, platform change or domain move can change how customers reach your business. Gavek helps define the SEO requirements around that change: what must be preserved, who will implement it and how the release will be checked. Begin the review while the new site can still be adjusted. Agree the website scope, technical access and deliverables before scheduling work.

What the engagement can deliver

An agreed old-to-new URL inventory with decisions for important exceptions.
A migration requirements pack covering redirects, discovery signals and implementation owners.
A launch acceptance checklist, evidence log and prioritised defect handover.
A post-launch review plan with named responsibilities for redirects and reporting.

What we need from you

The existing and proposed website structure, platform changes and intended launch window.
Available URL exports and authorised access to relevant search or analytics evidence.
Development, hosting and content owners, including the person who approves deployment.

Protect the destinations that matter

Build the starting inventory from available CMS exports, sitemaps, search reports, analytics landing pages and known important inbound links. Include documents, images, language versions and commercially useful pages rather than checking the homepage alone. Classify each destination as retained, replaced, merged or intentionally removed. A page with no legitimate replacement needs an explicit decision, not an unrelated homepage redirect.

Make the launch plan implementable

Prepare a mapping and test plan that the development or hosting team can use. Permanent URL moves normally need appropriate server-side redirects, commonly 301 or 308. Check the final destination, chains, query handling and both host variants. Update internal links, canonical signals, language annotations and sitemaps to the intended new addresses. Separate URL changes from hosting-only changes so the release uses the correct checks.

Agree evidence for launch and handover

Set a launch decision point with the people who own deployment, content and measurement. Verify the release candidate against the agreed acceptance list, then repeat critical checks in production. For applicable domain or subdomain moves, plan Search Console's Change of Address process for the verified variants; it is not the process for an ordinary path-only redesign or HTTP-to-HTTPS move. Assign long-term redirect maintenance, generally for at least a year, and a review schedule for errors and priority landing pages. Search fluctuations can occur while changed URLs are reprocessed.

How the handover is checked

Agreed important old addresses reach the intended destinations without loops or unexplained chains.
Priority new pages have the intended response, indexing rules, canonical and language relationships.
Critical navigation and enquiry journeys work, and unresolved launch risks have an owner and decision.
The team receives the tested mapping, known limitations and the continuing maintenance schedule.

Illustrative project example

Hypothetical project: a wholesaler changes its catalogue paths during a redesign. The migration brief preserves useful product-family pages and maps retired guides to genuine replacements. The release is held until a category-wide redirect error is corrected. After launch, the team reviews errors and enquiry journeys separately from changes in search traffic. This is an illustrative process, not a customer result.

Related services and guidance

Methodology references

Technical guidance reviewed against current primary documentation on 1 November 2026. Project dates, access, deliverables and commercial terms belong in the agreed proposal.