How do you move a site without losing search traffic?
Site migration SEO: keep every URL that was ever indexed
Site migration SEO is moving a website to a new platform or address without losing the search traffic its old pages earned. The rule that matters most is to keep every URL that was ever indexed working, either as the same page or as a permanent redirect to its closest match. Google says to keep redirects for at least a year and expect a few weeks of change.
When TechFabric moves your site with Heddle, every URL you were ever indexed at is listed first, and the build fails if any of them would stop working. How an engagement works.
Inventory first
List every URL the old site was ever indexed at before anything changes. The live sitemap is the floor. Search Console's page report adds URLs the sitemap forgot, and backlinks add old addresses other sites still point at. heddle legacy reads the sitemap and, with access, Search Console, and writes one sorted file.
When fabric.pro moved its marketing pages out of the product app in October 2026, the list was 80 URLs. Eleven became pages on the new site and 69 redirect to the app, where the docs stayed.
Redirect each one
Google's site-move guide asks for server-side permanent redirects, 301 or 308, from each old URL straight to its final destination. No chains. They waste crawl, and every hop is a chance to lose the signals the old page earned. Sending many old pages to the new homepage is called out by name as something not to do.
Keep the redirects for as long as possible, which Google puts at a year at the least. Heddle's urls check fails the build if any address in the inventory would 404, or if a redirect hides a page the new build makes.
Cut over last
Build the new site on a preview address and check it there. Move the domain at the end, once the parity audit shows titles, canonicals and structured data at least as good as before. If the domain itself changes, file Change of Address in Search Console for every verified variant of the old one, www and bare, live or not.
Then wait. Google says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more before the new URLs show in place of the old. On techfabric.com nothing measured in the first weeks after a rewrite meant anything, and the rule became four weeks before the first reading.
Sources
Each was read on October 10, 2026.
Questions
How long should 301 redirects stay after a migration?
Google says to keep them as long as possible and generally at least a year. They can stay indefinitely, but update internal links to the new URLs so pages don't load through a redirect.
Will rankings drop after a site migration?
Google says temporary changes are normal and that a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more to show the new URLs. Lost URLs with no redirect are what make a drop permanent.
Work with us
Let the agents bring you the leads.
Tell us about your business and who buys from you. On a short call we'll show you the searches your buyers make where you don't show up yet, and what the agents would do about them in their first month.
On the call, for your site
- The searches your buyers makeMeasured, with how many people make each one
- Where you show up, and where you don'tOn Google and in ChatGPT's answers
- The agents' first monthThe pages, fixes and links they would start with