Migrating website without losing seo authority

At a glance

The community member is concerned about maintaining their website's SEO authority and rankings during a full-scale redesign. They are considering migrating to a new website or gradually updating the existing one. The comments suggest that SEO authority transfer takes time and can be a "hit/miss" process. Some recommendations include:

- Leveraging reverse proxy to roll out changes in phases, using 301 and 302 redirects accordingly

- Matching legacy and new URLs as much as possible, setting up redirects where necessary, including for images

- Updating internal links to point to the new site

- Using the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console to help Google understand the changes quicker

The community members advise the original poster to "plan for the hit, prep for the miss" and make it easy for Google to understand the changes during the migration process.

KKieran O

Hi guys,

I'm in the process of a full-scale redesign for my company's website. My major concern is keeping our current site's SEO authority and rankings intact.

My current website is on Webflow, and I was wondering what the best way to go about this is. Has anyone had success migrating to a new website without losing SEO ground and authority? Or is it better to build the new site directly over the old one, maybe by adding new pages and gradually updating?

8 comments

MMarce Russo

well, you can do it all.. but SEO authority transfer takes time.. i used to do it back in the day… it was a bit of hit/miss

KKieran O

What would you recommended?

MMarce Russo

Plan for the hit, prep for the miss

MMarce Russo

if you are leveraging reverse proxy, you can do it in phases, and ensure you have the 301 and 302 listed accordingly

MMarce Russo

and rollout pages as it happen…and check the SEO impact of those pages. and then do another batch.

NNik

Hey - I often deal with migrations and the rule of thumb is - make it easy for Google to understand what has changed. Some things you can do to ensure good migration with minimal negative impact (which will happen while Google figures things out):

Match legacy vs new URLs as much as possible.
If not possible, set up redirects.
URLs are not just pages but images too, so you can set redirects those too.
Update internal links to point to the new site.
Make sure you use the Change of Address tool in Search Console which will help Google pick up the changes quicker.

There are a few other little things you can do but the above is some of the main stuff.

MMarce Russo

I had completely forgot about the images 😅

KKieran O

Thank you guys, much appreciated.

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Migrating website without losing seo authority