SEO Migration Consultant

An SEO migration consultant protects the search visibility your website has already earned while its platform, design, domain, or URL structure changes. I work with business owners, marketing teams, and developers who need a controlled launch rather than months of avoidable ranking recovery.

This page is for businesses changing platform, domain, design or URL structure. The first step is a free 20-minute diagnosis. A fixed-fee migration audit follows from £495. Launch-day checks and monitoring after launch are scoped to the project. Delivery works alongside your own developers. They keep control of the build.

The four common migration types are a CMS or platform change, a redesign, a domain move and a URL restructure. Each can alter the signals Google uses to crawl, understand and rank individual pages. My own sites have moved from WordPress to Next.js and from WordPress to Astro on Cloudflare. Four migration enquiries have come in since the end of August 2026, including a Shopify rebuild, a Webflow relaunch and recovery after another provider's migration.

Proof: I moved my own site

I moved my own consultancy site from WordPress to a rebuilt Next.js site on 20 February 2026. The numbers below come from Google Search Console on 31 October 2026.

• Before the move: 18 clicks from 12,998 impressions in the 7.7 months from 1 July 2025 to 19 February 2026.
• After the move: 506 clicks from 397,107 impressions in the 8.3 months from 20 February to 28 October 2026.

The rebuild also added new content. The gain comes from the platform and the content together. This is one site and not a promise for yours.

The same process applies on a smaller scale. One of my own affiliate sites moved from WordPress to Astro in May 2026. Its duplicate H1s went from 55 to 0 and schema coverage went from 34% to 100% of pages. More results from my own portfolio are on the proof page.

Why Website Migrations Lose Rankings

Website migrations lose rankings when important search signals change without a complete transfer plan. The new site may look correct to visitors while Google encounters missing pages, weaker content, or conflicting instructions.

Broken redirect chains waste authority across several hops. Changed URL paths with no 301 redirects return errors instead of transferring signals. New templates often strip useful body content, headings, schema, or metadata. Internal links can keep pointing at old URLs and force every click through a redirect. Canonical and hreflang tags may still reference the old domain. A forgotten staging directive can also leave the test site indexed or the live site blocked. A technical SEO audit finds these risks before they become a post-launch recovery project.

What an SEO Migration Consultant Actually Does

An SEO migration consultant creates the control system around the move. The work starts before development is signed off and continues until search performance has stabilised.

Pre-migration benchmark. I record current clicks, impressions, rankings, conversions, indexed pages, and top landing pages using Google Search Console and GA4. A complete crawl export preserves the current URL set, status codes, metadata, canonicals, internal links, and structured data.

URL inventory and redirect map. Every useful old URL receives a defined destination. I flag redirect chains, duplicates, removed pages, and mappings that send distinct pages to a generic category or homepage.

Content parity check. Priority pages are compared across old and new versions. The review covers body copy, headings, title tags, descriptions, image alt text, schema, internal links, canonicals, and hreflang.

Staging crawl and sign-off. I crawl the staging site as a search engine would and test templates across representative page types. Issues are assigned to the right developer before approval.

Launch-day checks. Redirects, robots directives, canonicals, sitemaps, analytics, structured data, status codes, and priority pages are checked as soon as the new site is live.

30, 60, and 90-day monitoring. I compare the launch against the benchmark, investigate changes by URL and query, and separate normal recrawling from faults that need intervention. The website redesign SEO checklist explains the checks your wider project team should expect.

Migration Types I Handle

Each migration type carries a different primary risk. The plan changes according to what is moving and which search signals must remain stable.

Platform-to-platform migrations. A move from one CMS or commerce platform to another can change URL rules, rendering, schema, navigation, and template content at once. I coordinate the requirements for WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento migrations so platform defaults do not overwrite the existing search structure.

Redesigns on the same CMS. The URL paths may stay unchanged while templates remove content, weaken headings, alter internal links, or slow down priority pages. Content parity and template testing matter more than a large redirect exercise.

Domain changes and rebrands. A new domain requires one-to-one redirects, updated canonicals and hreflang, clean sitemap changes, Search Console setup, and careful monitoring while Google transfers signals. The risk grows when ownership, branding, content, and hosting change together. My guide to SEO after an acquisition explains why these changes should be sequenced.

HTTP to HTTPS and URL restructures. Protocol changes can create redirect loops, mixed internal links, duplicate versions, or insecure assets. Wider URL restructures add mapping risk because every altered path needs an appropriate permanent destination.

How a Migration Engagement Works

The migration programme has three phases: before, during, and after launch. Each phase has a defined evidence set and approval point.

Before launch, I benchmark performance, crawl the current site, build or review the URL inventory, validate the redirect map, and compare important content. I then crawl staging and give your development team a prioritised issue list with acceptance checks.

During launch, I coordinate with your existing developers rather than replacing them. They manage the platform and deployment. I verify the SEO requirements, test the live response, and identify issues by URL, template, and severity. Nothing goes live without sign-off on the redirect map.

After launch, I monitor Google Search Console, GA4, crawl data, indexation, and priority rankings. Your team receives concise actions tied to the evidence, so developers can fix technical faults quickly and marketing can avoid changing pages while signals are still settling.

Migration Questions

Will I lose rankings when I change platform?

Some movement is normal while Google recrawls the new site. Losses are mostly avoidable. Every indexed URL needs a redirect. Ranking content needs to carry over. The launch needs checking the day it happens. The loss comes from missing redirects, stripped content and launch faults. The platform itself is not the cause. My own move from WordPress to Next.js is the example above.

What does a migration audit include?

The £495 migration audit covers:

• A redirect map of every indexed URL.
• Historic URLs found through backlinks and web archives. Old links with value are not lost.
• A list of the titles, H1s and content to keep on each priority page.
• A staging crawl before launch.

Launch-day checks and the 30, 60 and 90-day monitoring are scoped to the project on top of the audit.

Can you fix a migration someone else already did?

Yes. Recovery after another provider's migration is a common enquiry. I compare the live site with what Google had indexed before the move. Search Console, backlink data and archives show the gaps. Then I find the URLs that lost a redirect, content or a canonical. Your developer gets a prioritised list. The scope is quoted after the free 20-minute diagnosis.

Do you make the changes or does my developer?

Your developer makes the changes. They manage the platform and deployment. I write the requirements, test staging and the live site, and give them the fixes in priority order. With no developer, I can scope implementation separately after the diagnosis.

Can it be ready before a fixed launch date?

Tell me the date in the free 20-minute diagnosis. I confirm whether the audit and fixes fit before it. I say so when the date is too close. Timing depends on site size and how much is changing. It is quoted after the diagnosis.

How long does a website migration affect SEO?

A planned migration keeps the disruption short and any fault traceable. A migration with no redirect map can leave pages invisible for much longer. The length depends on how much changes and how well the old signals carry across. The 30, 60 and 90-day checks show whether recovery is on track.

Do I need an SEO consultant if my developer is handling the migration?

Yes. Developers preserve function. Rankings depend on SEO-specific tasks such as the redirect map, content parity checks and the Google Search Console handover. An SEO consultant owns those checks and works alongside the development team.

Should I change domain and redesign at the same time?

No. Sequence them so each change can be measured and any problem can be isolated. Complete the migration first when both changes are unavoidable. Release the redesign after rankings and indexation have stabilised.

Pricing

A fixed-fee pre-migration audit starts from £495 and covers the URL inventory, redirect map, and staging crawl for a standard migration. A full migration programme is scoped per project because platform complexity, site size, international variants, and development timelines change the work involved. Post-launch recovery monitoring is available through an ongoing retainer from £1,500 per month if wanted.

Every engagement begins with a free 20-minute SEO diagnosis focused on your site's biggest search problem and the most useful next step. No obligation and no sales pitch.

Related Guides

• Website Redesign SEO Checklist: the checks to run before, during, and after a redesign
• SEO After an Acquisition: protecting organic visibility through ownership and domain changes
• Technical SEO Audit: a complete review of crawlability, indexation, and site infrastructure
• Technical SEO Consultant: specialist support for complex technical issues
• Google Algorithm Update Recovery: diagnosis and recovery when organic visibility falls