Website Migration

What website migration covers

A website migration moves an existing site from one place to another. That might mean a new hosting provider, a new platform such as moving from Wix or an old custom system to WordPress, or from WooCommerce to Shopify, a new domain name, or a change of URL structure. Often it is a combination.

The technical move is usually the easy part. The hard part is making sure nothing is lost along the way: pages, images, downloadable files, form integrations, tracking codes, email records in DNS and, above all, the URLs that search engines and other websites already point to.

Common reasons to migrate

• Current hosting is slow, unreliable or has poor support.
• The platform has become limiting, expensive or hard to secure.
• A rebrand requires moving to a new domain name.
• Several separate sites are being merged into one.
• An online store is moving between Shopify, WooCommerce and other platforms.
• The site is moving from a developer’s account into accounts the business owns.

What we handle

• Pre-migration crawl of the old site to record every URL, title, description and asset.
• Content and media migration, including pages, posts, products, images and documents.
• URL mapping from every old URL to its new destination.
• 301 redirects implemented and tested against the full list.
• Data migration for stores: products, customers and order history where the platforms allow it.
• Integrations and tracking reconnected: forms, analytics, ad pixels and third-party tools.
• DNS cutover planned to minimise downtime, with email records preserved.
• Post-launch verification against the old sitemap and Search Console.

Our migration process

1. Inventory. Crawl the old site, export analytics and Search Console data, and back up everything.
2. Plan. Build the URL map, list integrations and agree the cutover date.
3. Migrate to staging. Move content and data to the new environment and review it with you.
4. Test redirects. Check every mapped URL resolves correctly with a single redirect.
5. Lower DNS TTL ahead of the switch, so the change takes effect quickly.
6. Cutover. Point DNS to the new site at a low-traffic time and verify SSL.
7. Verify. Re-crawl, check Search Console for errors, submit the new sitemap and, for domain changes, use Google’s Change of Address tool.
8. Keep the old site available in the background until you confirm everything is right.

Tools and platforms

We migrate between WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Next.js, static sites and custom PHP or Node.js applications, using site crawlers, platform import tools and custom scripts where built-in tools fall short. DNS is often moved to Cloudflare at the same time for easier management. For server-level moves, our cloud team handles server migration and DNS management.

Why URL mapping matters so much

Every URL on your current site is an address that search engines, other websites, old emails, printed brochures and customers’ bookmarks may point to. When a site moves and those addresses stop working, all of that accumulated value leads to error pages instead.

A URL map lists every old address and the exact new address it should lead to. A 301 redirect then tells browsers and search engines that the page has moved permanently, so visitors arrive in the right place and search engines transfer their understanding of the old page to the new one.

• Every page, product, category and blog post URL.
• Images and PDF files that are linked from other sites.
• Old campaign and landing page URLs still used in ads or QR codes.
• Variations such as trailing slashes, uppercase letters and old query parameters.

We test the full map after launch, checking that each old URL returns a single redirect to a working page, not a chain of redirects or a missing page.

What affects timeline and cost

• The number of pages, products and media files.
• Whether the platform changes, or only the hosting.
• Data migration for customers and orders.
• The complexity of the URL structure change.
• Integrations that must be rebuilt on the new platform.

Migration mistakes that cost rankings

• Redirecting every old URL to the homepage instead of its matching page.
• Creating redirect chains that pass through several hops.
• Forgetting images and PDF files that other sites link to.
• Overwriting email MX records when changing DNS, so company email stops working.
• Shutting down the old hosting before the new site is verified.

Changing the design at the same time? See website redesign. New hosting setup is covered under domain and hosting setup. Browse all web development services, read the web development guide, or contact us.

Frequently asked questions