Website
migration

When website migration makes sense

Website migration usually starts with one of three frustrations. The monthly builder subscription keeps rising and the site still can't do what you need. The old platform has become fragile: updates break things, nobody remembers how it was built. Or you've outgrown it: you want booking, a CRM link, more pages or several locations, and the current setup can't handle them.

In all three cases the answer is the same: a new site that you own, on the same domain, with your content moved across carefully. That last part is what this page is about.

The URL map: heart of a safe migration

Every page on your current site has an address, and many of those addresses carry value: they rank on Google, appear in directories, get shared in emails, sit on your Google Business Profile. The URL map is a simple spreadsheet listing every old address and where it will point after the move. I build it from a crawl of the old site, your analytics and Search Console, and from tools that show which pages have links from other sites.

Pages that matter get a direct equivalent. Pages that are outdated redirect to the closest relevant page, never all to the homepage, which search engines treat almost like a broken link. Before launch I test every line of the map.

Moving content, not problems

I don't transfer other people's code. A migration is a new build, so the content goes into a clean structure. On the way I fix what was wrong: duplicate pages are merged, thin pages get rewritten or dropped, images are resized, headings are put in order. Many sites come out of a migration lighter and clearer than they went in. If the structure itself needs rethinking, the project overlaps with a website redesign.

The switch day

When the new site is ready and approved, the switch is short: DNS records are changed to point to the new hosting, redirects go live, and I check the most important pages, forms and tracking within the first hour. I pick a quiet time with you, often an evening or a weekend morning in your time zone. Email records stay untouched, so your inbox keeps working throughout.

After the move

The first weeks after a migration are when problems show up, so I watch closely: Search Console for crawl errors and dropped pages, analytics for traffic changes on key pages, and the forms and call tracking for leads. A small dip in rankings for a short period is normal while Google processes the changes. A sustained drop isn't, and I investigate it. The SEO side of this is covered in detail in the SEO migration service and the guide on website migration and SEO.

Canadian details to plan for

If your domain is a .ca, it's governed by CIRA's rules, which require a Canadian presence for the registrant; your business usually qualifies, but the domain should be in its name rather than a past developer's. Privacy policies and cookie consent need to come across too, updated for PIPEDA and, if you serve Quebec, Law 25. More on domains in .ca domain and hosting.

Common migration mistakes

Redirecting everything to the homepage, forgetting image and PDF addresses, launching with the "noindex" setting still on from the staging site, and losing conversion tracking for a week because nobody re-added the tags. Each of these is easy to prevent with a checklist, and each is surprisingly common.

What it costs

A migration of a business site starts at $3,000 CAD, including the new site, content move, redirects and monitoring. Online stores start at $4,800 and large sites on a custom CMS at $11,900. Prices are final, payment comes in stages and deadlines go into a written agreement.