An SEO migration refers to the process of making significant changes to a website’s structure, content, or domain while preserving or enhancing its search engine rankings. Unlike a standard website migration, an SEO migration specifically focuses on maintaining the website’s visibility in search engines, ensuring that you don’t lose the traffic and rankings you’ve worked hard to build.

Why is SEO migration crucial?

During a migration, changes such as URL structure updates, content revisions, or domain switches can disrupt search engines’ understanding of your website, potentially causing a drop in rankings. An SEO migration strategy minimises this risk by carefully planning each stage, monitoring performance, and managing redirects to guide both users and search engines to the correct pages on your new or updated site.

A well-executed SEO migration not only helps you avoid traffic losses but can also improve your site’s performance by implementing best practices, removing outdated content, and optimising for new SEO standards. For those serious about maintaining and growing their online presence, working with an experienced team like Submerge, a certified SEMrush Agency Partner, ensures your migration is as seamless as possible, with strategies in place to protect and even enhance your visibility.

For a comprehensive breakdown of the steps involved, feel free to download our free SEO migration checklist.

A regular website migration focuses on moving or redesigning a website, often prioritising visual elements, functionality, or the underlying technology. While these changes may enhance user experience, they don’t necessarily account for search engine rankings.

In contrast, an SEO migration is specifically designed to protect and optimise your site’s search visibility throughout the migration process. It involves careful planning and attention to elements that affect SEO, such as URL structures, redirects, metadata, and internal linking. Without an SEO-focused approach, a regular migration risks causing search rankings to drop, potentially leading to traffic loss.

For businesses reliant on organic traffic, an SEO migration is essential to retain visibility and prevent a decline in search performance. Download our comprehensive guide to learn more about the steps involved in a successful SEO migration.

Alternatively, find out more about our website SEO migration services or learn more about what a SEMrush Agency Partner is.

Migrating a website without an SEO migration strategy can lead to significant risks that impact your search engine rankings and traffic. Key risks include:

• Loss of search rankings – search engines rely on a clear structure to understand and rank your content. Without SEO planning, changes to URLs, content, or internal linking can confuse search engines, leading to drops in rankings and visibility.
• Broken links and 404 errors – a migration without proper redirects can result in broken links and 404 error pages. This frustrates users and signals to search engines that your site may not be well-maintained, which can harm your SEO performance.
• Loss of authority and backlinks – backlinks from other websites contribute to your site’s authority. If these links aren’t redirected correctly during migration, you risk losing valuable SEO equity, affecting your site’s credibility and ranking potential.
• Decline in organic traffic – with rankings affected, your organic traffic can decrease sharply, impacting leads, conversions, and revenue. Restoring lost traffic can be time-consuming and challenging without an initial SEO strategy.

An SEO migration strategy anticipates and addresses these risks, ensuring that your site retains its search visibility. For a detailed breakdown of what’s involved, download our comprehensive guide on website SEO migration.

Partnering with a certified SEMrush Agency like Submerge ensures your website migration is guided by proven expertise and advanced tools. As SEMrush-certified specialists, we leverage cutting-edge SEO insights and analytics to create a tailored migration strategy that minimises risks and maximises performance. Our experience allows us to address critical areas – such as redirects, keyword preservation and technical SEO – ensuring search engine rankings and traffic remain stable or even improve after migration.

Working with a certified agency also provides access to in-depth SEMrush resources and data that help us identify any potential issues early on. This proactive approach ensures a smoother migration process, protecting your visibility and long-term success.

At Submerge, we utilise a range of industry-leading tools to make SEO migrations seamless and effective.

Our toolkit includes:

SEMrush

As a certified SEMrush Agency Partner, we use SEMrush for in-depth site audits, keyword tracking, and backlink analysis, ensuring that your migration protects and enhances SEO performance.

Learn more about SEMrush.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog’s website crawler helps us identify and address technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing metadata, which are crucial during a migration.

Learn more about Screaming Frog.

Google Search Console (GSC)

GSC provides insights into search visibility and indexing, allowing us to monitor performance and troubleshoot any issues in real-time as we move through the migration process.

Google Analytics

With Google Analytics, we track traffic patterns and user behaviour before, during, and after the migration, allowing us to identify and swiftly address any drops in performance.

Majestic

Majestic helps us analyse backlink profiles and preserve valuable links, safeguarding your website’s authority and search rankings throughout the migration.

Learn more about Majestic.

Together, these tools enable us to execute a highly controlled and data-driven migration that minimises disruption and maximises your website’s SEO integrity.