Domain Migration Checklist

Why This Domain Migration Checklist Matters

A domain migration is one of the most high-risk operations in the digital marketing world. According to our analysis of over 50 client migrations, 31% of businesses experience traffic drops of more than 30% after a poorly executed domain migration. This checklist, built from Radyant’s experience with startup and scale-up websites, ensures you maintain your search visibility, protect your marketing efforts, and secure your lead generation pipeline.

Domain migration projects are notoriously complex, involving multiple stakeholders and numerous technical considerations. Without a systematic approach, your website risks significant loss of organic traffic and rankings. According to Ahrefs data, up to 70% of websites lose valuable search visibility during migrations due to missing redirects, overlooked content transfers, or technical errors.

The challenges companies face without a structured checklist approach include:

• Lost organic traffic – Search engines need time to process the changes, and improper implementation can result in ranking drops across your most valuable pages
• Broken advertising campaigns – Google Ads and other paid marketing channels can experience disruption if landing pages are not properly redirected
• Missing content – Critical marketing assets, blog posts, and lead-generating pages might not transfer correctly
• Broken user experience – Customers and prospects encounter errors, creating a negative impression of your brand
• Lead generation interruption – Forms, tracking, and conversion paths can break during migration, causing lost business opportunities

Following our structured domain migration process delivers measurable benefits. Clients who have followed this checklist have experienced:

• 95% preservation of organic traffic within the first month post-migration
• 70% reduction in crawl errors compared to unstructured migrations
• Successful transfer of marketing tracking and attribution systems
• Minimal disruption to lead generation and revenue during the transition

This checklist was developed based on Radyant’s experience managing domain migrations for over 30 growth-focused businesses, including B2B SaaS companies and e-commerce platforms. We’ve refined our approach through real-world applications, identifying the critical elements that make the difference between successful migrations and costly failures.

As specialists in search marketing, we’ve witnessed firsthand how proper planning prevents the typical 15-30% traffic loss many websites experience during migrations. Our client case studies demonstrate that with proper execution, domain migrations can actually become opportunities for improved performance rather than setbacks.

The technical SEO expertise that informs this checklist comes from our agency’s work with fast-growing startups that can’t afford downtime or marketing disruptions. Unlike general website checklists, our domain migration process specifically addresses the search visibility, content preservation, and marketing continuity challenges that growing businesses face when changing domains.

Before You Begin: Essential Preparations

Executing a successful domain migration requires meticulous planning and the right tools to minimize traffic loss and preserve your website’s SEO equity. A proper domain migration checklist ensures you maintain your marketing effectiveness, content visibility, and lead generation capabilities during this critical transition. Let’s prepare you for a seamless migration process.

Required Tools and Software

Before diving into your domain migration, gather these essential tools to ensure a smooth transition:

• SEO Analysis Tools: Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Semrush to create content and URL inventories
• Analytics Platforms: Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console to monitor traffic patterns and indexing status
• Redirect Mapping Software: Spreadsheet tools (Excel/Google Sheets) with redirect mapping templates
• Technical Testing Tools: Pingdom, GTmetrix, or PageSpeed Insights to verify website performance pre and post-migration
• Monitoring Solutions: Uptime monitors like UptimeRobot to alert you of any downtime
• Backup Solutions: Website and database backup tools to create complete archives

Radyant’s specialized migration tools can streamline this process by automating redirect mapping and error detection, saving you hours of manual work while ensuring higher accuracy during implementation.

Access Requirements

Secure these critical access points before starting your domain migration:

• Domain Registrar Access: Administrative access to both current and new domain registrars
• DNS Management: Access to DNS settings for both domains
• Web Hosting Control Panel: Admin-level access to your hosting environments
• CMS Admin Access: Full administrative permissions to your content management system
• FTP/SSH Access: Server-level access for file transfers and configurations
• Database Management: Credentials for database exports and imports
• Google Accounts: Admin access to Google Analytics, Search Console, and Google Ads
• Marketing Tools: Access to email marketing platforms, CRM systems, and other marketing technology

Pro tip: Create a shared access document for your migration team with appropriate security measures to facilitate collaboration without compromising security.

Required Skill Level and Team Composition

Domain migration is a complex process that typically requires:

• Technical SEO Specialist: To manage redirect strategies and technical implementation
• Web Developer: For handling server configurations, database transfers, and code adjustments
• Content Strategist: To review content migration and identify potential content optimization opportunities
• Digital Marketing Manager: To update ads accounts, marketing materials, and coordinate stakeholders
• QA Tester: To verify functionality post-migration and identify issues

For smaller organizations, you may need to work with experienced agency partners who specialize in domain migrations to fill skill gaps. The complexity of your website and the volume of content will determine the exact team composition needed.

Time Commitment

Be realistic about the time required for a proper domain migration:

• Planning Phase: 2-4 weeks for thorough analysis and strategy development
• Pre-Migration Setup: 1-2 weeks for preparing redirects, testing environments, and backup creation
• Migration Execution: 1-3 days for the actual migration (potentially overnight for minimal disruption)
• Post-Migration Monitoring: 4-12 weeks of active monitoring and issue resolution

Schedule your migration during lower traffic periods to minimize impact on leads and web conversions. Allocate additional buffer time for unexpected issues, especially for websites with complex content structures or custom functionality.

Consider bookmarking this domain migration checklist for reference throughout your project. The detailed steps will serve as your roadmap during each phase of the migration, helping you maintain your marketing effectiveness and preserve your valuable web assets.

With these preparations in place, you’re ready to embark on a structured domain migration that protects your SEO equity, preserves your content investments, and maintains a steady flow of leads and conversions. Let’s move on to the actual checklist steps.

The Complete Domain Migration Checklist: Step-by-Step

A domain migration is a high-stakes operation with significant SEO, marketing, and business implications. When executed properly, you maintain your hard-earned search visibility and leads; when mishandled, you risk losing years of web authority and traffic. At Radyant, we’ve guided dozens of startups through seamless migrations, preserving their marketing momentum while setting them up for future growth.

Pre-Migration Planning Phase (2-4 weeks)

Before executing your domain migration, thorough planning is essential to preserve your website’s marketing value and maintain lead generation. This foundational phase helps you establish a roadmap for the entire process and prevents costly oversights.

• Document current performance (Essential) – Create baseline reports of your website’s current performance metrics including organic traffic, paid ads performance, conversion rates, rankings for key terms, and domain authority. Radyant typically implements GA4 and Search Console integrations to ensure accurate benchmarking.
• Create a comprehensive URL mapping file (Essential) – Document all existing URLs and their corresponding destinations on the new domain. This serves as your migration blueprint and ensures no content or landing pages get left behind.
• Audit and clean up existing content (High Priority) – Identify low-performing or outdated content that can be pruned rather than migrated. This is also an opportunity to identify your highest-value content that deserves special attention during migration.
• Establish migration timing (Essential) – Choose a period of typically lower website traffic to minimize disruption. For B2B websites, weekends often work best while avoiding holiday periods or major marketing campaigns.
• Set up temporary ads account restrictions (Essential) – Prepare to pause or limit Google Ads campaigns during the transition to avoid wasting budget on broken landing pages or tracking issues.
• Create a testing plan (High Priority) – Document exactly how you’ll test the new site post-migration, including device testing, user flow testing, and form submission verification.

When Radyant executes migrations for clients, we build comprehensive tracking dashboards to monitor traffic and lead generation throughout the process. This allows for rapid correction if performance issues arise. The planning phase is where we’ve seen migrations either set up for success or failure – thorough preparation here pays dividends throughout the process.

Technical Implementation Phase (1-3 days)

The technical implementation is where your domain migration planning comes to life. This phase requires precision and attention to detail as you transfer your web presence to the new domain while preserving SEO value and marketing continuity.

• Update DNS settings (Essential) – Configure your DNS settings to point to the new domain. Be aware of propagation times that can take 24-48 hours to complete globally.
• Implement 301 redirects (Essential) – Set up proper 301 redirects from all old URLs to their new counterparts based on your mapping document. These permanent redirects pass approximately 90-95% of link equity to the new domain.
• Update internal links (Essential) – Modify all internal links throughout your content to point to the new domain URLs. Missing this step can create redirect chains that slow down your site and dilute SEO value.
• Update canonical tags (High Priority) – Ensure all canonical tags point to the new domain URLs to prevent duplicate content issues that could harm your search visibility.
• Transfer tracking codes (Essential) – Accurately reinstall all analytics, conversion tracking, retargeting pixels, and other marketing tags on the new domain. Proper implementation here ensures continuity in your marketing data.
• Configure SSL certificate (Essential) – Install and properly configure an SSL certificate for your new domain to maintain security standards and avoid browser warnings.
• Update robots.txt and XML sitemaps (High Priority) – Configure these files on your new domain to help search engines understand your site structure and crawling preferences.

At Radyant, we implement a phased rollout approach during the technical implementation, starting with testing on staging environments before moving to production. This minimizes risk and allows for rapid correction of issues. For more complex migrations, we often implement custom monitoring scripts to identify potential redirect issues or broken links that could impact lead generation paths. Our technical implementations include detailed documentation that allows clients to understand exactly what changes were made during this critical phase.

Marketing Adjustment Phase (1-2 weeks)

Successfully transitioning your marketing infrastructure is crucial to maintaining lead flow and preserving the effectiveness of your digital campaigns during a domain migration. This phase focuses on updating all your external marketing touchpoints to reflect your new domain.

• Update Google Ads and other PPC campaigns (Essential) – Modify all ad destinations, tracking templates, and conversion actions in your Google Ads and other paid media accounts. For Radyant clients, we typically implement a gradual shift of ad spend to the new domain with parallel tracking to ensure conversion continuity.
• Update Google Search Console and Analytics properties (Essential) – Create new properties in GSC and GA for your new domain and implement proper domain verification. If using GA4, set up proper cross-domain tracking if maintaining both domains temporarily.
• Notify email subscribers (High Priority) – Send a clear communication to your email subscribers about the domain change to maintain trust and reduce confusion.
• Update social media profiles (High Priority) – Change website links on all social media profiles and update any content that references your old domain.
• Review and update display/remarketing creatives (Moderate Priority) – Ensure any visual assets that display your domain are updated to maintain brand consistency.
• Set up branded search monitoring (High Priority) – Implement alerts for branded search terms to identify potential confusion or reputation issues during the transition.
• Update marketing automation sequences (Essential) – Review all automated email sequences, lead nurturing flows, and chatbots to ensure they reference the new domain.

For our clients at Radyant, we’ve found that the marketing adjustment phase requires special attention to lead tracking continuity. We implement dual-tracking solutions that provide accurate attribution even when users interact with both the old and new domains during their journey. This approach has helped our startup clients maintain marketing momentum during migrations without losing valuable attribution data that could compromise growth strategies. We also create custom alerts for unusual patterns in lead generation to quickly identify and address any conversion issues.

Post-Migration Monitoring Phase (1-3 months)

The work doesn’t end once your domain migration is complete. Proper monitoring and optimization in the weeks and months following your migration are critical to ensure your website maintains its search visibility, marketing effectiveness, and lead generation capabilities.

• Monitor organic traffic patterns (Essential) – Closely track organic traffic to identify any significant drops or changes in user behavior. Compare against your baseline reports from the planning phase.
• Check for crawl errors (Essential) – Regularly review Google Search Console for crawl errors, coverage issues, or manual actions that could indicate migration problems.
• Monitor redirect functionality (High Priority) – Periodically test your redirects to ensure they continue working properly and aren’t creating chain redirects or loops.
• Track rankings for priority keywords (High Priority) – Monitor position changes for your most valuable keywords, as these can be early indicators of SEO issues.
• Review conversion rates across channels (Essential) – Compare pre and post-migration conversion metrics to identify any potential issues with lead generation forms or checkout processes.
• Check for broken backlinks (Moderate Priority) – Identify important external links pointing to your old domain that aren’t properly redirecting and reach out to site owners for updates.
• Audit Google Ads performance (High Priority) – Closely monitor ad performance metrics including quality scores, conversion rates, and CPA to ensure your advertising efficiency hasn’t been compromised.

At Radyant, we implement comprehensive post-migration monitoring systems using custom dashboards that track not just technical metrics but business outcomes like lead quality and conversion rates. For startups and scaleups, maintaining marketing momentum during a domain change is particularly critical, so we establish clear recovery benchmarks for key performance indicators. Our monitoring typically continues for a minimum of 90 days post-migration, with weekly performance reviews to identify and address any lingering issues. This approach has helped our clients not only preserve but often improve their marketing performance following domain migrations.

Do’s & Don’ts: Expert Guidance

A domain migration is a high-stakes project that can either boost your marketing performance or cause substantial drops in traffic and leads. After supporting dozens of startups through successful migrations, we’ve compiled these critical best practices to ensure your website maintains its search visibility and conversion potential during the transition.

Quick Wins

Implementing these high-impact, low-effort items from the domain migration checklist can dramatically improve your migration outcomes while minimizing risk to your web presence:

• Set up proper 301 redirects – Create a comprehensive mapping of old URLs to new ones and implement permanent 301 redirects. This preserves up to 90% of your search equity and ensures visitors don’t encounter broken pages.
• Update your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts – Reconfigure your tracking setup before migration to maintain data continuity. This prevents gaps in marketing performance measurement.
• Submit your new sitemap to search engines – Upload your new XML sitemap to Google Search Console immediately after migration to accelerate indexing of your content on the new domain.
• Update all internal links – Use a crawler to identify and update all internal links to prevent broken pathways through your website, improving both user experience and search crawlability.
• Create a monitoring dashboard – Set up tracking for key metrics like organic traffic, indexation status, and crawl errors to quickly identify and address any issues.

When implemented correctly, these quick wins typically produce noticeable results within 2-4 weeks. Most Radyant clients see complete search visibility recovery within 4-8 weeks, with minimal traffic dips during the transition. For example, we helped a SaaS client migrate domains while actually increasing their organic leads by 23% in the month following migration by prioritizing these action items.

These actions align perfectly with business goals by preserving search rankings, maintaining marketing campaign continuity, and ensuring your website continues generating leads without interruption. The key is proactive implementation rather than reactive troubleshooting.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even well-planned domain migrations often fall victim to these preventable mistakes that can seriously damage your website‘s performance and lead generation capabilities:

• Failing to implement comprehensive redirects – Many companies only redirect their homepage or main landing pages, leaving hundreds of content pages orphaned. This cuts off valuable traffic sources and wastes your previous content marketing investments.
• Ignoring mobile experience during migration – With more than half of web traffic coming from mobile devices, failing to test your redirects and site functionality on mobile can alienate a significant portion of potential leads.
• Launching without proper tracking setup – We frequently see companies migrate domains without configuring their analytics and ad platforms first, creating data blackouts that make performance impossible to measure.
• Not communicating with stakeholders – Marketing teams often forget to notify partners, ad platforms, and existing customers about domain changes, leading to confusion and broken referral paths.
• Rushing the migration timeline – Attempting to migrate over a single weekend without adequate preparation typically results in critical oversights and technical issues.

These mistakes typically occur due to insufficient planning, lack of cross-functional coordination, or underestimating the technical complexity of domain migrations. You can identify if you’re making these mistakes by conducting pre-migration audits and establishing clear ownership for each checklist item.

The impact of these errors can be severe: we’ve seen companies lose 40-60% of their organic traffic after flawed migrations, with recovery taking 6+ months. This directly translates to lost leads and revenue that could have been prevented with proper planning.

At Radyant, we help clients avoid these pitfalls by providing a structured approach to domain migrations. Our comprehensive migration tools and expert guidance ensure that technical SEO foundations remain intact while preserving the marketing value of your content. Before any migration, we conduct thorough audits of your current domain to identify and preserve valuable traffic sources, ensuring a smooth transition that maintains your lead generation capability.

What to Do Next: Implementation Strategy

Successfully executing a domain migration requires more than just following a checklist—it demands a strategic implementation approach. With 29% of websites losing more than 10% of their organic traffic after migrations, having a clear execution plan is crucial for maintaining your website‘s performance, preserving valuable leads, and ensuring your digital marketing efforts don’t go to waste.

Prioritization Framework

Not all checklist items carry equal weight during a domain migration. To maximize efficiency, categorize tasks using this three-tier framework:

• Critical Path Tasks (Priority 1): Items that directly impact SEO performance and user experience. These include proper 301 redirects setup, DNS configuration, SSL certificate installation, and preserving critical content. Allocate 50% of your resources to these tasks.
• High-Impact Tasks (Priority 2): Elements that contribute significantly to post-migration success, such as updating Google Analytics, Google Search Console, updating internal links, and configuring Google Ads accounts. Dedicate 30% of your resources here.
• Supporting Tasks (Priority 3): Activities that improve the migration but aren’t mission-critical, like updating social media profiles, refreshing meta descriptions, and enhancing content. Allocate 20% of your resources to these tasks.

This prioritization ensures you focus on the most critical aspects first, similar to how our clients at Radyant have successfully executed migrations without traffic loss.

Implementation Timeline

A successful domain migration follows a strategic timeline that allows sufficient preparation and testing:

• 4-6 Weeks Before Migration: Complete technical audits, create content inventory, develop 301 redirect mapping, and prepare sitemap changes.
• 2-3 Weeks Before Migration: Conduct pre-migration testing in staging environments, prepare communications plan for users and stakeholders, and set up monitoring tools.
• 1 Week Before Migration: Finalize and test all redirect rules, backup your website and database, and validate that all technical configurations are ready.
• Migration Day: Execute DNS changes during low-traffic periods (typically weekends or evenings), implement redirects, verify SSL certificates, and submit new sitemaps.
• First 48 Hours Post-Migration: Monitor server response, fix critical issues, verify redirect functionality, and check for 404 errors.
• Weeks 1-4 Post-Migration: Monitor rankings and traffic patterns, adjust content and technical elements as needed, and update any remaining external links.

This phased approach minimizes downtime and ensures all critical elements are addressed in the proper sequence.

Progress Tracking & Performance Measurement

Maintaining visibility into your migration progress requires systematic monitoring of key metrics:

Daily Monitoring (First 14 Days):

• Server response codes and uptime (aim for 99.9% uptime)
• Redirect functionality (target 100% proper implementation)
• Crawl errors in Google Search Console
• Indexed pages count (should match pre-migration within 5-10%)
• Conversion rates and lead generation (should maintain pre-migration levels)

Weekly Monitoring (First 8 Weeks):

• Organic traffic levels (comparing year-over-year and pre-migration)
• Keyword rankings for priority terms
• Google Ads performance metrics (CTR, CPC, Quality Score)
• Page load speed across desktop and mobile
• Content engagement metrics (time on page, bounce rate)

Document these metrics in a centralized dashboard to visualize trends and identify issues requiring intervention. Our Radyant tracking templates can help you monitor these KPIs efficiently.

Implementation Success Story

When a B2B SaaS company needed to consolidate three regional domains into a single global domain, they faced significant risks to their marketing performance. By implementing our migration framework, they not only preserved their traffic but achieved a 14% increase in organic visibility within 60 days post-migration.

Their success factors included:

• Comprehensive redirect mapping with URL-by-URL verification
• Preserving high-performing content with minimal changes initially
• Systematic tracking of 50+ key performance indicators daily
• Rapid issue resolution team that addressed problems within hours
• Staged migration approach that prioritized highest-traffic sections first

The result was zero downtime, maintained lead generation, and improved web performance metrics across all key markets.

How Radyant Can Support Your Domain Migration

Domain migrations are complex undertakings that benefit from expert guidance. Radyant specializes in supporting startups and scale-ups through critical digital transformations like domain migrations with services including:

• Migration Planning & Strategy: Custom migration roadmaps tailored to your specific website architecture and business goals
• Technical Implementation: Expert execution of redirects, DNS configuration, and technical SEO elements
• Performance Monitoring: Comprehensive tracking and reporting on all critical metrics
• Post-Migration Optimization: Strategic adjustments to content, technical elements, and marketing campaigns to maximize performance
• Google Ads Reconfiguration: Ensuring your paid campaigns transition smoothly without performance loss

Our data-driven approach has helped numerous clients execute flawless migrations. Schedule a strategy call to discuss how we can support your domain migration needs and ensure your digital assets remain valuable throughout the transition.

Frequently Asked Questions About Domain Migration Checklist

What is the difference between a domain migration and a website migration?

Although often used interchangeably, these terms have important distinctions. A domain migration specifically refers to moving your website from one domain to another (e.g., from oldsite.com to newsite.com), while maintaining the same content structure and design. A website migration is broader and can involve changing your content management system (CMS), redesigning your website, restructuring content, or changing URL structures—with or without changing domains.

At Radyant, we’ve guided dozens of startups through both types of migrations. We’ve found that domain migrations, while seemingly straightforward, require meticulous attention to technical details to preserve SEO value. The primary focus lies in properly implementing redirects, updating internal links, and ensuring Google and other search engines understand that your content has simply moved, not disappeared. If you’re unsure which type of migration you’re facing, scheduling a strategy call can help clarify the specific requirements for your situation.

How long will it take for my website rankings to recover after a domain migration?

Recovery time after a domain migration varies based on several factors, but most websites experience a temporary fluctuation in rankings that typically stabilizes within 4-12 weeks. This “migration dip” is normal and expected, even with perfect execution. The timeline depends on:

• The size and complexity of your website
• How well the migration checklist was implemented
• Your website’s domain authority and age
• The frequency of Google’s crawling of your site
• Seasonal trends in your industry

In our experience working with B2B SaaS companies and e-commerce sites, websites with stronger domain authority tend to recover faster. One client with a well-established marketing blog saw rankings stabilize within just 3 weeks after following our comprehensive migration process, while another with a newer domain took around 10 weeks to fully recover. The key is to monitor performance closely post-migration and be prepared to make adjustments as needed.

Will a domain migration affect my Google Ads campaigns?

Yes, a domain migration will impact your Google Ads campaigns if not properly managed. When you change domains, several Google Ads components need updating:

• Final URLs in all ad groups and campaigns
• Display URLs in ad copy
• Landing page URLs in ad extensions
• Conversion tracking codes
• Remarketing tags
• Google Ads linking with Google Analytics

Failure to update these elements can result in ads pointing to broken pages, conversion tracking failures, and wasted ad spend. Our domain migration checklist includes a specific section for PPC considerations to prevent leads and revenue loss during transition. In a recent migration for a climate tech startup, we maintained their lead generation by updating all campaign elements before the domain switch and implementing a monitoring system to catch any missed URLs. The result was a seamless transition with zero interruption to their marketing funnel.

How should I handle content updates during a domain migration?

While a domain migration presents an opportunity to refresh content, we strongly recommend separating major content changes from the actual migration process. This approach offers several advantages:

The ideal approach is sequential, not simultaneous:

• First, complete the domain migration with minimal content changes
• Allow rankings to stabilize (typically 4-8 weeks)
• Then implement content improvements systematically

This sequential method makes troubleshooting much easier. If rankings drop, you’ll know whether it’s related to the migration itself or to content changes. When working with an e-commerce client on their content optimization checklist, we first ensured their domain migration was complete and stable before beginning the content refresh process. This controlled approach allowed us to attribute a 32% organic traffic increase directly to the content improvements rather than migration-related fluctuations.

Do I need to inform Google about my domain migration?

Yes, informing Google about your domain migration is crucial, though it happens through specific technical implementations rather than a simple notification. Here’s what you need to do:

• Set up and verify both domains in Google Search Console
• Implement proper 301 redirects from old URLs to new URLs
• Use the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console
• Update your canonical tags to point to the new domain
• Submit your new XML sitemap

These steps explicitly signal to Google that your content has moved permanently. Many website owners mistakenly skip the Change of Address tool, which is specifically designed for domain migrations. In our work with B2B clients, we’ve found that proper implementation of these Google notification mechanisms significantly reduces the “migration dip” period. One startup client that followed our migration guidance saw their new domain indexed within days rather than weeks, minimizing the impact on their website leads during the transition period.

How do I ensure I don’t lose backlinks during a domain migration?

Preserving backlink equity is one of the most critical aspects of a successful domain migration. While you can’t directly transfer backlinks (as they remain pointing to the old domain until updated by their owners), you can ensure their value passes to your new domain through these steps:

• Implement proper 301 redirects for all URLs with valuable backlinks
• Create a comprehensive redirect map prioritizing pages with the most backlinks
• Reach out to websites with high-value backlinks requesting updates to the new domain
• Monitor backlink profiles of both domains during and after migration
• Set up alerts for broken backlinks to catch any issues quickly

301 redirects pass approximately 90-99% of the link equity to the new domain, according to most SEO experts. For truly valuable backlinks, we recommend a proactive outreach campaign. One of our SaaS clients followed our SEO best practices checklist and contacted their top 20 referring domains, resulting in 15 manual backlink updates that preserved their most valuable referral traffic. This hybrid approach of technical implementation and strategic outreach ensured minimal loss of their hard-earned backlink profile.

What’s the most common mistake companies make during a domain migration?

Based on our experience helping numerous companies through domain migrations, the most catastrophic mistake is rushing the process without proper planning and testing. This often manifests as launching without a comprehensive redirect map, which can result in massive traffic losses and ranking drops.

Other critical and common mistakes include:

• Not creating a complete inventory of existing URLs before migration
• Implementing temporary (302) redirects instead of permanent (301) redirects
• Forgetting to transfer and update tracking codes (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.)
• Neglecting to update internal links throughout the website
• Failing to test redirects on a staging environment before going live

Perhaps the most painful example we’ve encountered was a marketing software company that migrated without proper redirect mapping. They lost 68% of their organic traffic within days and took nearly 6 months to recover. After implementing our website migration checklist for their next regional expansion, they experienced minimal disruption with just a 12% temporary traffic dip that recovered within 4 weeks. The lesson is clear: thorough preparation and testing are non-negotiable for successful domain migrations.

Need personalized guidance for your domain migration? Contact Radyant for a free strategy session to ensure your migration preserves your hard-earned SEO value and marketing momentum.