A Guide To Enterprise-Level Migrations (100k + URLs) via @sejournal, @TaylorDanRW

An endeavor website migration is nary tiny feat.

We’re talking hundreds of thousands of URLs and years of SEO equity connected the line.

To propulsion it disconnected without postulation loss, you request a coagulated redirect strategy.

With the close approach, you tin migrate an endeavor website without losing postulation oregon hunt rankings.

If you enactment organized, leverage tools to scale, and wage attraction to details, you volition person done everything you tin to guarantee concern continuity successful the short, medium, and agelong word pertaining to integrated performance.

Aside from the method aspects of migration, an endeavor migration, much often than not, comes with the added pressures of:

• Strong levels of C-level/VP-level attraction and communications.
• Multiple task teams and stakeholders making SEO-impacting decisions.
• SEO pros needing to beryllium progressive successful “non-traditional” SEO calls and readying meetings.

In a ample tract migration, determination is besides the accrued imaginable for thing known arsenic “migration lag.”

What Is Migration Lag?

Migration lag refers to the clip play aft launching a caller website wherever postulation and rankings driblet arsenic hunt engines observe and scale the caller site.

For immense endeavor sites with hundreds of thousands of URLs, this lag tin past for months.

To minimize migration lag, you indispensable person a coagulated redirect strategy earlier the caller tract launches. This means:

• Prioritizing redirects for high-traffic and high-value pages. Focus connected redirecting pages that thrust the astir postulation and gross first.
• Using wildcards to redirect categories of pages. For example, redirect /product/* to /new-site/all-products/.
• Including URL parameters successful redirects. Make definite redirects walk connected immoderate query parameters, similar /product/123?color=red to /new-site/product/123?color=red.
• Breaking redirect chains. If a leafage has been redirected aggregate times, constituent the last redirect to the caller destination URL.
• Redirecting backlinks. Find each links pointing to the aged tract and acceptable up redirects truthful they constituent to the due caller pages. This preserves the nexus equity you’ve built up.
• Accounting for caller redirects. If you’ve done immoderate redirects successful the past six months, acceptable up caller redirects to constituent those pages to the due caller URLs.

With technical SEO savvy and patience, you tin navigate an endeavor website migration with minimal postulation and rankings loss.

Stay connected apical of your redirects and support optimizing and reacting to your information and Google’s ever-changing hunt motor results pages (SERPs), and hunt postulation volition instrumentality to normal.

Soft-Launch Pre-Migration

In June 2023, John Mueller floated the thought of launching a caller domain “early” earlier the authoritative migration switchover.

This was interesting, arsenic the wide champion signifier communicative has been to not fto the caller domain beryllium unfastened to crawling earlier the migration switchover date.

As with immoderate caller recommendation, this is thing I’ve tested since connected idiosyncratic task sites and with lawsuit moves.

Testing has shown that indexing has happened faster for the caller domain, particularly erstwhile compared to the domains successful my “How Long Should A Migration Take” study.

In the Google Search Console screenshot below, I migrated a domain connected January 28, but I enactment the caller domain unrecorded and crawlable/indexable from January 21.

By February 1, the caller domain was 100% indexed, and Google had adjacent crawled and processed each the /feed URLs that were acceptable to nodindex.

Screenshot from Google Search Console, February 2025

While this was a tiny website (1,300 URLs), the information was akin to different domain migrations and subdomain to subfolder migrations I’ve taken this attack with.

The astir communal pushback I’ve had to this attack has been the wider concern tendency to “make a splash” with PR astir the motorboat and the accidental of an existing lawsuit uncovering the caller tract early. If they stock the caller site, the imaginable problems this could origin tin diminish immoderate benefits gained.

The 2nd astir communal pushback, which is valid, is if determination person been important changes to content, product, oregon marque that request to stay nether embargo until the scheduled motorboat date.

Defining The Migration Strategy

Once you’ve audited your existing tract and redirects, it’s clip to representation retired however you privation to grip the migration.

The strategy you make present volition find however seamless this modulation is for some your users and hunt engines.

Define Goals

What bash you privation to execute with this migration? Are you aiming to consolidate domains, determination to a caller content absorption strategy (CMS), restructure content, oregon combine?

Be precise wide connected your objectives truthful you tin make the champion approach.

Prioritize Redirects

With hundreds of thousands of URLs, you’ll request to find which redirects are astir captious to instrumentality first. Focus initially on:

• Your astir important pages (homepage, merchandise pages, etc.).
• Pages that make a important magnitude of website leads/revenue, either straight oregon indirectly.
• Pages that make the astir integrated postulation for the website.
• Pages with strong backlink profiles. Those that are crawled often by Google/other hunt engines should beryllium prioritized supra those with bigger backlink clusters – but this is an nonsubjective measurement you volition request to determine.

Once the high-priority redirects are handled, enactment your mode down from there. Don’t interest astir redirecting each azygous URL close away.

As agelong arsenic you person the bulk of important pages and postulation accounted for, the remaining redirects tin beryllium added implicit time.

A large mode to prioritize redirects, is to make a dashboard of each applicable information you privation to see and prioritize by (such arsenic the examples I’ve fixed above) and creating a matrix with RANK.EQ successful Google Sheets, and past a prioritization categorizer.

The illustration beneath is simply a precise simplified mentation of this. First, you privation to collate each your information astatine the URL level:

Image by author, February 2025

You past privation to fertile these values against their idiosyncratic metric information sets. To bash this, you usage =RANK.EQ(VALUE,VALUE RANGE).

This lets you spot which URLs are successful the higher percentile and which ones are successful the little percentile:

Image by author, February 2025

You past privation to automate batch assignment, and this requires 3 steps.

First, a “reverse RANK.EQ”, which would be:

=COUNT(A:A) - RANK.EQ(A1, A:A) + 1

Which volition archer you which URLs are “the best” based connected each 4 metric ranks combined:

Image by author, February 2025

From here, you tin either person the Overall EQ to percentages successful different column, and past tally a regularisation against them that if they are =< oregon => definite thresholds, they autumn into antithetic batches.

You tin besides divided the rows up by measurement ordered by the Overall EQ if you person redirect limits (like erstwhile moving to Salesforce Commerce Cloud oregon SAP Hybris; work much below).

Map Content And URL Structure

Determine however you privation to reorganize oregon restructure your contented connected the caller site.

Map retired which existing URLs volition redirect to which caller destinations. Group related contented and consolidate wherever possible.

The caller information architecture should beryllium intuitive and user-friendly.

Redirect Types

For the bulk of redirects, usage 301 imperishable redirects.

In immoderate cases, temporary 302 redirects whitethorn marque sense, particularly if the leafage contented is inactive being migrated.

Be precise cautious erstwhile utilizing wildcards, and ever bash spot checks to guarantee determination are nary 404 errors. Redirect parameters whenever imaginable to avoid duplicate contented issues.

Backlinks

Make a database of immoderate pages with beardown backlink profiles and guarantee they are redirected properly. Reach retired to webmasters linking to those pages and fto them cognize the caller URL to spot if they volition update the nexus connected their page.

This helps to sphere the SEO worth built up implicit time.

With cautious readying and strategical prioritizing, you tin migrate an endeavor website and enactment the indispensable redirects successful spot without (too much) chaos. But spell slowly; this is not a task to rush!

Think done each measurement and cheque your enactment on the way.

Establishing The Migration Project Timelines

When managing a ample website migration, establishing realistic timelines is crucial.

Trying to redirect hundreds of thousands of URLs successful a abbreviated timeframe is simply a look for disaster.

You request to program up and beryllium strategical successful however you signifier the work.

It’s besides precise important that migration timelines are a collaborative effort involving each stakeholders.

Far excessively often, the concern determines an arbitrary deadline without taking into relationship the feasibility of each teams to implicit each indispensable actions comfortably successful time.

Avoid Phased/Partial Migrations

Avoiding phased oregon partial migrations is important erstwhile managing redirects for an endeavor website. Piecemealing your migration volition lone make much enactment and headaches down the road.

I worked connected a migration successful the past 2 years that was consolidating aggregate domains (products) nether a caller umbrella domain, and the archetypal program was to bash 1 aft the different successful a phased approach.

More than a twelvemonth later, the 2nd domino inactive hasn’t fallen. Google has started to fertile the umbrella domain for products successful the radical it isn’t optimized for – causing interior domain cannibalization and show issues arsenic the marque entity is “fractured” crossed aggregate domains.

Prior to this, I’d ne'er witnessed a phased oregon partial migration mitigate the risks to the show that the cautious decision-makers felt it would.

Do It All At Once

The champion attack is to redirect each URLs astatine the aforesaid time. This ensures:

• No pages are near orphaned without a redirect successful place.
• There are nary redirect chains created that request to beryllium cleaned up later. Redirect chains tin negatively interaction SEO and idiosyncratic experience.
• All backlinks constituent to the due caller destination page. If done successful phases, aged pages whitethorn accumulate caller backlinks that past request to beryllium redirected.

Setting Up 301 Redirects At Scale

At an endeavor level, setting up 301 redirects for tens oregon hundreds of thousands of URLs requires immoderate strategical planning.

Here are immoderate tips for tackling this astatine scale:

Using Wildcards And Handling Parameter URLs

When managing redirects for an endeavor website, wildcards and parameters go your champion friends. With truthful galore URLs, creating idiosyncratic redirects for each would beryllium an endless task.

Wildcards let you to redirect groups of pages astatine once.

Say you person merchandise pages similar /product/abc123, /product/def456, /product/ghi789. You tin acceptable up a wildcard redirect similar /product/* to constituent to the caller /products page.

This azygous redirect volition seizure each merchandise pages and nonstop visitors to the close place.

Parameters, similar IDs, SKUs, oregon dates, often alteration erstwhile tract contented gets updated oregon reorganized.

Rather than tracking down each lawsuit of an aged parameter to redirect it, usage a redirect that includes the parameter.

For example, if you person a URL similar /blog/post?id=123 that is present /news/story/123, acceptable up the redirect /blog/post?id= to constituent to /news/story/.

This volition drawback immoderate leafage with that parameter signifier and nonstop visitors to the caller structure.

When utilized decently astatine an endeavor scale, wildcards and parameters can:

• Save countless hours of manual redirect instauration and maintenance.
• Ensure nary leafage is near down during a migration oregon tract architecture change.
• Continue to seizure caller pages that lucifer the signifier arsenic the tract grows and evolves.

Be precise cautious erstwhile utilizing wildcards and parameters successful your redirects. Test them thoroughly to guarantee nary unintended pages are caught successful the net.

Monitor them regularly, adjacent aft launch, to drawback immoderate issues early. Used responsibly, though, they are indispensable tools for managing redirects astatine an endeavor level.

Breaking Redirect Chains

Redirect chains tin easy signifier erstwhile you person a precocious measurement of redirects connected an endeavor website.

A redirect concatenation occurs erstwhile a URL redirects to different URL that besides redirects, creating a concatenation of aggregate redirects to scope the last destination page.

To debar redirect chains, you’ll request to hint backmost done your caller redirect past to find the archetypal root URL. Once you place the archetypal URL that started the chain, redirect it straight to the last destination page.

This volition chopped retired each the mediate redirects successful the concatenation and supply a overmuch amended idiosyncratic experience.

• Check your server log files to presumption URL redirect histories from the past 3 to six months. Look for immoderate patterns of the aforesaid URL redirecting aggregate times.
• Use a redirect crawler instrumentality to automatically observe redirect chains connected your site. These tools volition crawl your tract and log immoderate bid of aggregate redirects for the aforesaid URL.
• For caller redirects little than 180 days old, double-check that the archetypal URL is present redirecting decently to the close last destination. Newer redirects person a higher accidental of issues, truthful verifying them volition assistance debar aboriginal problems.
• If you observe breached redirect chains, hole them by redirecting the archetypal root URL straight to the past destination URL successful the chain. Remove immoderate mediate redirects that are nary longer needed.
• Test each fixes to guarantee the redirect concatenation is afloat breached and the idiosyncratic acquisition is improved. Check that SEO rankings and postulation person stabilized for the URLs involved.

By diligently detecting and breaking redirect chains, you’ll supply a overmuch amended wide acquisition for your users and tract visitors.

Your endeavor website volition relation much efficiently, and you’ll debar imaginable drops successful hunt rankings and traffic.

Historic Redirects

When migrating an endeavor website, it’s casual to hide astir redirects that were already successful place. These historical redirects, particularly those nether six months old, inactive request to beryllium accounted for to debar postulation loss.

As you audit your site’s existent redirects, marque a database of immoderate that constituent to pages that volition beryllium changing oregon removed successful the migration.

These redirects volition request to beryllium updated to constituent to the caller destination URLs. Some things to look for include:

• Temporary lawsuit pages that present redirect to a wide section.
• Product pages that present redirect to an updated model.
• Blog posts that redirect to a class archive.

Double-check that immoderate historical redirects implicit six months aged inactive request to beryllium successful place. Some whitethorn beryllium sending signals to hunt engines that are nary longer needed.

Removing unnecessary historical redirects volition besides assistance to simplify your site’s redirect operation and marque it easier to negociate going forward.

When mounting up your migration’s redirect plan, beryllium definite to origin successful updating immoderate historical redirects to their caller destination URLs.

Leaving these down could effect successful mislaid postulation and rankings for important pages connected your site.

Staying connected apical of your endeavor website’s historical and caller redirects during migration is cardinal to a palmy modulation with minimal SEO impact.

Overcoming Redirect Limits

If you person an endeavor website with hundreds of thousands of pages, you whitethorn tally into issues with redirect limits from your CMS oregon ecommerce platform.

Many systems similar SAP Hybris and Salesforce Commerce Cloud headdress the fig of redirects you tin person astatine 50,000 to 100,000. For a large website migration (especially endeavor ecommerce websites), this apt won’t chopped it.

To get astir these constraints, you’ll request to get creative. A fewer options to consider:

• Use wildcard redirects to seizure categories of pages. For example, redirect /products/* to /shop/*. This azygous redirect volition seizure each pages that commencement with /products.
• Exclude parameters from redirects erstwhile possible. If you person pages similar /product-name?color=red and /product-name?size=large, redirect lone /product-name to the caller URL. The parameters are often not indexed oregon linked to, truthful you tin permission them retired of the redirect.
• Break up redirect chains. If you person a bid of three+ redirects for a azygous page, interruption up the concatenation and make nonstop redirects from the archetypal URLs to the last destination. Historically, chained redirects were thought to walk on nexus juice, but this has been proven false. Keep redirects arsenic nonstop arsenic possible.
• Prioritize mission-critical pages. When you commencement to scope the redirect limit, absorption connected redirecting pages that thrust important postulation and revenue. You tin permission little important pages unredirected oregon with a 404 mistake temporarily.
• Ask your CMS vendor astir expanding limits. Many systems volition summation redirect limits connected an endeavor website if you inquire and explicate your needs. Be prepared to wage further fees for this add-on.

With originative reasoning and persistence, you tin flooded astir redirect limits and implicit an endeavor website migration without losing a large chunk of your integrated traffic.

The cardinal is having a well-thought-out redirect strategy and implementing it good earlier you deed your CMS’s limits.

Benchmarking Organic Performance (Traffic, Rankings, Indexation)

Once the redirects person been implemented, it’s clip to spot however your integrated postulation and rankings person been impacted.

Benchmarking Your Progress

This volition assistance find if immoderate further optimization is needed. Here are a fewer cardinal metrics to monitor:

• Organic hunt traffic. Compare postulation from large hunt engines similar Google earlier and aft the migration. Expect immoderate archetypal driblet successful traffic, but it should commencement recovering wrong 1 to 2 months. If postulation is inactive importantly little aft 3 months, revisit your redirect implementation.
• Keyword rankings. Track the rankings of your astir important keywords to spot if their positions person changed. Drops successful ranking are communal aft a migration, but rankings should commencement improving again implicit clip arsenic hunt engines recrawl your caller site. Major drops that don’t amended could awesome redirect oregon contented issues that request to beryllium addressed.
• Indexation. Use a instrumentality similar Google Search Console to cheque however overmuch of your caller tract has been indexed. A large, analyzable tract tin instrumentality 3 to six months for Google to afloat recrawl and re-index. Look for dependable increases successful indexation implicit time. If indexation stalls oregon drops, there whitethorn beryllium method issues preventing Google from accessing parts of your site.
• 404 errors. Monitor your 404 errors to guarantee immoderate breached links are redirecting properly. High numbers of 404s, particularly aged URLs, bespeak redirects that request to beryllium created oregon fixed.
• Backlinks. Do a backlink audit to verify that immoderate links pointing to your aged tract present redirect to the due caller URLs. Failure to redirect backlinks is simply a communal origin of postulation and ranking nonaccomplishment aft a website migration.

Regularly benchmarking these cardinal metrics volition springiness you invaluable penetration into however good your endeavor website migration and redirect implementation is going.

Make adjustments arsenic needed to get your caller site’s integrated show backmost connected track.

Communicating Migration Performance To The C-Level

Communicating migration show to enactment is important for continued enactment and concern successful your endeavor website.

Even if the migration itself goes smoothly, problems tin originate aft motorboat if the C-suite isn’t connected board.

Set Clear Expectations

Before the migration, beryllium down with executives and set factual goals and cardinal show indicators (KPIs) for the caller site.

Not each metrics request to substance straight to SEO, but giving the C-level much data and clarity tin assistance forestall knee-jerk reactions and atrocious decisions from being imposed connected the migrations team.

Be transparent that determination whitethorn beryllium an archetypal dip successful metrics arsenic the caller tract establishes itself. Having targets volition assistance find if the migration is gathering concern needs aft things settee in.

Share Detailed Reports

In the months pursuing the migration, supply regular reports connected however the caller tract performs compared to the aged tract and the established KPIs.

Compare these aforesaid metrics from the aged tract to springiness discourse connected progress. Be unfastened astir immoderate issues, and person solutions and adjacent steps acceptable to propose.

It often helps to create a Looker Studio report so the C-level has instant entree to information and feels arsenic though they person immoderate power implicit the situation.

Finally, Don’t Forget To Highlight Wins

While reporting connected challenges is important, it is besides important to showcase successes from the migration.

Promoting wins, large and small, demonstrates the worth of the concern successful the migration and builds assurance successful your team.

Keeping enactment regularly informed astir however the caller endeavor website is performing is essential.

With unfastened connection and a premix of advancement reports and wins, executives volition stay supportive and engaged successful optimizing the tract to execute the champion results.

More Resources:

• 5 Things To Consider Before A Site Migration
• Managing Successful SEO Migrations
• The Complete Technical SEO Audit Workbook

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