Redirect mapping done properly

Every URL that carries search value gets mapped individually, cross referenced against Search Console data, not guessed at in bulk.

Platform agnostic expertise

WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, or a fully custom stack, we have moved businesses between all of them.

Post launch monitoring included

We watch indexing and rankings closely after launch, catching problems in days instead of discovering a traffic drop weeks later.

Why website migrations go wrong

A website migration, moving a site from one platform to another, or a significant redesign on the same platform, is one of the highest risk projects a business can undertake for its search visibility. The risk rarely comes from the new design itself. It comes from what happens to the old URLs. A business that has built years of search rankings on a specific set of URLs can lose a meaningful share of that visibility within days if those URLs are not properly redirected to their new equivalents.

The most common failure pattern we see when brought in to fix a botched migration is a blanket redirect, every old URL sent to the new homepage, rather than a mapped, one to one redirect from each old page to its actual new equivalent. Search engines read a mass redirect to the homepage as a strong signal that the original content no longer exists anywhere, which tanks rankings for exactly the pages that were driving traffic before the migration happened.

Canada Create treats migration as a distinct project phase with its own deliverables, not a footnote inside a redesign scope. The work starts with a full audit of the existing site: every indexed URL, its current search performance, and its backlink profile, since pages with strong backlinks need particularly careful handling to preserve that authority through the move.

From there, we build a one to one redirect map, connecting every old URL that carries meaningful traffic or backlinks to its correct new destination. Pages that are being consolidated or removed intentionally get redirected to the most relevant remaining page, not defaulted to the homepage. This mapping work is genuinely tedious for a large site, which is exactly why it gets skipped by teams under launch deadline pressure, and exactly why skipping it causes the damage.

We also plan the migration’s technical execution carefully: staging the new site fully before launch, testing redirects in a staging environment, and choosing a launch window that allows close monitoring afterward rather than migrating on a Friday afternoon and hoping nothing breaks over the weekend. Once live, we monitor Google Search Console daily for the first two weeks, watching for crawl errors, unexpected drops in indexed pages, or ranking volatility that would signal a redirect gap needing immediate attention.

Full site and search audit. We inventory every indexed URL, its current rankings, traffic, and backlink profile, identifying which pages need the most careful handling during the move.

Redirect mapping. Every URL of meaningful value gets mapped individually to its new destination, cross referenced against the new site’s actual structure rather than assumed.

Staging and testing. The new site and its redirects get tested fully in a staging environment before anything goes live, catching broken mappings before they affect real traffic.

Launch and close monitoring. We monitor Search Console and analytics daily for the first two weeks after launch, addressing any crawl or indexing issues immediately rather than discovering them a month later in a quarterly report.

Beyond the blanket redirect problem already covered, the next most damaging mistake is migrating on a compressed timeline that skips staging entirely. Testing redirects and functionality in a live production environment for the first time means any mistake is immediately visible to real visitors and search engine crawlers, rather than caught safely in staging first.

The second mistake is ignoring backlinks during the audit phase. A page with modest search traffic but strong backlinks from reputable sites carries real authority that benefits the whole domain, and losing that page’s URL without a proper redirect wastes link equity that took years to build and cannot be quickly rebuilt after the fact.

The third is treating the migration as finished the moment the new site goes live. The real risk window is the two to four weeks afterward, while search engines recrawl and reindex the new URL structure. Businesses that stop monitoring right after launch sometimes miss a redirect gap or crawl error until a monthly report reveals a traffic drop that could have been caught and fixed within days.

Any business changing platforms, WordPress to Shopify, Squarespace to Webflow, or anything in between, needs a formal migration process if the current site has any meaningful organic search traffic or backlink profile worth protecting. It also applies to same platform redesigns that change URL structure significantly, since the platform staying the same does not protect against ranking loss if URLs change.

A brand new business with no existing search history does not need the same level of migration care, since there is no existing ranking equity at risk. We scope migration work based on what is actually at stake for your specific site, not a one size fits all package.

Packages

Migration pricing

Every migration starts with a free audit so you know the actual scope before committing to hourly or project pricing.