There is nothing more frustrating than browsing an old website and accessing a 404-error code. It is a clear sign that your site needs migration or it has been migrated inaccurately. When you are migrating a website, it polishes your current website and involves the work like moving links or content to the new platform. The big concern is how to migrate a website without affecting the SEO but it should increase the website rank into search engines.

Here is a checklist as shared by experts that will not only help in successfully migrating a website but it will not harm SEO as well.

• Structure of URLs should be maintained well
• Set redirects for changed URLs
• Page descriptions should be uniformed
• HTML mark-ups should be the same
• Setup the domain forwarding

Let us dive deeper into these steps and understand what they mean exactly.

• Structure of URLs should be maintained well

The structure of each URL should be the same and even the content after the backslash. For example, if I want to map the blog page of Intertoons site then it should like this.
https://intertoons.com/new/blog

Instead of something like this:

https://blog.intertoons.com/new/

It will definitely help in SEO optimization. For structure maintenance, you need to update the HTML annotations and internal links and save them to the sitemap.

• Set redirects for changed URLs

Redirects are extremely important to hit SEO. It will tell the visitors that the site URL has been changed or it does not exist longer. It will also guide the Google and other search engines that a particular web page has been replaced with the newer ones.

• Page descriptions should be uniformed

Pages should be uniform and it should contain the same information as earlier. You can update the content internally but keep the description the same during the site migration.

• HTML mark-ups should be the same

When we are migrating a website, how can we forget about markup tags or headings, etc. For example, if you have pages with H1, H2, H3 tags then keep them the same and also add ‘alt’ tags to images.

• Setup the domain forwarding

In this step, you have to make sure that the root domain forwards to the subdomain. Here is a visual explanation for your reference.

A root domain looks like this – https://intertoons.com/
A subdomain looks like this – www.intertoons.com

When users want to visit your website then they should be able to access root and subdomains both through redirect function. Generally, website migration is a lengthy process but it is impossible with the right steps and strategies. A little preparation can help you in a successful migration without harming the SEO but you can make it even more effective for the newer website. Keep in mind all these steps and follow them one by one.
Don’t worry, if you forget anything in between because these steps can be executed in any order. All the best and don’t forget to share your experience with us. We will strongly recommend taking help from website development professionals like Intertoons and enjoy a hassle-free experience with us.