Migrating a website is an exciting opportunity for an organization, opening doors to new possibilities throughout the digital marketing landscape. However, a site migration can also lead to lost value if an organization does not follow key steps during its migration process.

One area that can be particularly impacted by a website migration is an organization’s search engine equity, which is the rankings and authority a site has built across search engines. With the right process in place — such as Br8kthru’s search engine equity migration (SEEM) process — search engine equity can be transferred and maintained, leading to better SEO outcomes over time.

Understanding Site Migration + Search Engine Equity

When a new website is launched, the existing search engine equity is not automatically migrated from the previous site, meaning the organization's SEO progress could be lost. Br8kthru’s proprietary SEEM process ensures that doesn’t happen.

“Website migrations are a common part of the digital marketing landscape, but we noticed not all of our Clients were prepared for the impacts a migration can have on search engine equity,” said Jon Lenz, Founder and CEO of Br8kthru. “Rather than let their SEO value  suffer, we developed SEEM as a tried-and-true process of retaining that equity for our Clients to preserve their hard-earned gains in search engine results pages, or SERPs.”

With the right planning and steps taken, businesses can migrate their SEO equity so their rankings never miss a beat.

Steps to Take to Migrate Your Search Engine Equity

Our top-down approach to SEEM starts with large-scale SEO considerations and works down to the details, always thinking ahead to future considerations for a more holistic SEEM strategy.

Here are a handful of the many steps we take to ensure a positive SEEM experience.

Audit and Crawl Existing Site

Before you begin SEO activities on a new site, you’ll need to better understand what is and is not working with the SEO on your current site. This will allow you to plan out what you should be sure to migrate or represent on the new site, and what may be able to be improved moving forward. This is also an opportunity for you to review what content is on your site, and where you have opportunities to advance the content, such as by updating the on-page experience or refreshing the information so it’s up-to-date.

Similarly, crawling your existing site is a method of reviewing and indexing your site content the way a search engine would understand it. This allows you to identify current errors and opportunities, so you can address them before migrating your site. 

Redirect URLs and Update Backlinks

When you migrate your site, your URLs are likely going to change. Setting up redirects allows the site to transfer credibility and ranking factors from one URL to another. In particular, 301 redirects allow search engines to know that a move has taken place, while 404 redirects will tell the search engines that certain pages don’t exist anymore.

Along the same lines, if your site is linked by other sources, like partner sites or news sites, it’s important to ensure that those links are updated, too, so their credibility is transferred to your new site.

Update Metadata

There are many pieces of information behind the scenes of a website that are used by site crawlers and users alike to understand the content. By updating the metadata to align with your new site, you can be sure the information matches best practices and is providing the most updated data possible on your site, for readers and search engines alike.

Review and Update SEO Structure

Many technical aspects of SEO must be considered during a site migration, including canonical tags, Robots.txt files, structured data, and more. Our SEO team will ensure that all the necessary specifications and structures are in place for your site to thrive post-migration.

Make SEEM Feel Seamless

SEEM can be complex, but Br8kthru makes it easy. With a proven process, we can help you effectively and efficiently migrate your site without sacrificing your SEO credibility. From auditing your existing site to running usability tests, Br8kthru can maximize your results. For more information on our SEEM process and opportunities for your next website migration, contact us today.