# Website Migration SEO Checklist for SaaS (Rebrand, Domain, Platform)

> A website migration checklist for SaaS rebrands, domain moves and platform rebuilds: inventory, URL map, redirects, launch-day checks and what to watch afterward.

Source: https://comppound.com/blog/website-migration-seo-checklist-for-saas-rebrand-domain-platform (published 2026-10-30)

A website migration checklist exists to protect the search traffic you've built while your URLs, domain or platform change. The essential work is simple to describe: list every URL that matters, map each one to its new home, redirect them with 301s on launch day, then check that Google and your analytics follow. Most losses come from skipping the inventory or from treating redirects as a job for launch week.

SaaS companies tend to migrate more often than other businesses, through rebrands, acquisitions and moves from a CMS to a custom Next.js site. Those moves usually have a deadline set by something else, such as a funding announcement or a new brand launch, and SEO gets whatever time is left. So bring this list into the project early.

## Know what kind of migration you're doing

The risk depends on how much is changing at once.

| Type | What changes | Risk | Google's Change of Address tool |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rebrand with new domain | Domain, often design and content | High | Yes |
| Domain consolidation | Blog or docs moved from a subdomain, or a merged acquisition | Medium to high | Depends on the setup |
| Platform rebuild, same URLs | Tech stack and templates | Medium, often underestimated | No |
| Restructure | URLs and navigation | Medium to high | No |
| HTTP to HTTPS | Protocol | Low | No |

A platform rebuild with no URL changes can still cause trouble, as rendering, internal links, titles and page content can all change along the way. "We're keeping the URLs" doesn't mean nothing can go wrong.

If you can avoid doing everything at the same time, do so. A new domain, a new design, new content and a new structure in one release make it nearly impossible to work out what went wrong. Google itself suggests moving in sections when you can, starting with a smaller part of the site.

## Before you start: the inventory

Say you run a 50-person SaaS rebranding from `oldname.io` to `newname.com`. Gather these two to four weeks before you start building, not on the week of launch.

Start with all known URLs, combining a crawl, your sitemaps, a long period of Search Console data, your analytics and a backlink tool's top pages, because each source catches pages the others miss. Record baselines too: clicks, impressions and conversions by page, and positions for your main commercial phrases.

Note your top-linked pages, since redirecting these properly protects years of earned links. Save the titles, descriptions, canonicals, H1s and structured data from your current site. Then list the other properties involved, such as subdomains, docs, status pages, marketplace listings and email links.

Mark your priority pages, such as those bringing organic demos, top-linked pages and pricing. Those get checked by hand.

## The URL map

This spreadsheet is the most important document in the project. Each row has an old URL, a new URL, a redirect type and an owner.

Map each old URL to its closest equivalent. Don't send everything to the homepage, because [Google may treat irrelevant redirects as soft 404s](/blog/301-vs-302-vs-307-vs-308-redirects-which-one-a-saas-site-should-use) and you'll lose much of the value. For every page you're retiring, make a decision: either redirect it to something truly related or let it return a 404 or 410.

Use one hop only, updating any older redirects so that they point at the final new URL rather than creating chains. Remember the files too, such as PDFs, images and downloads with links pointing at them. Wildcard rules are efficient, but test them, as they can produce wrong matches.

## Before launch: on the new site

Check all of this on staging, and keep staging out of Google with password protection.

- **Content parity:** Important pages keep their useful content, unless you've deliberately changed it. Rebrands often cut copy, and that can lose you rankings for no good reason.
- **Metadata:** Titles and descriptions have been carried over or deliberately improved. Update the brand name without rewriting everything at once.
- **Rendering:** Main content is in the HTML. See [JavaScript SEO for React and Next.js](/blog/javascript-seo-for-saas-sites-built-on-react-and-nextjs).
- **Internal links:** They point to new URLs directly, without relying on redirects.
- **[Canonicals](/blog/canonical-urls-on-saas-sites-common-issues-and-fixes):** Each one points at the new domain. A leftover environment variable can point them all at staging.
- **Structured data:** The organization name, logo and URLs have all been updated.
- **Analytics and conversion tracking:** They're installed and tested on the new site. A migration with no working tracking leaves you blind at the moment you most need data.
- **Robots:** The production version allows crawling, with no [noindex](/blog/meta-robots-x-robots-tag-and-noindex-on-saas-sites) copied over from staging.
- **Search Console:** The new domain is verified before launch, and you've kept access to the old one.
- **Rollback plan:** You know what you'd do if something's seriously broken.

Choose your launch date with care. Avoid your busiest sales period, and avoid launching just before a holiday when no one's around to fix things.

## Launch day

Run through these in order, and expect it to take a few hours.

1. **Remove the staging block,** and check that production isn't password-protected or set to noindex.
2. **Activate redirects,** and test a sample using `curl -sIL`, including your priority pages and some deep URLs.
3. **Crawl the old URL list** and confirm that each one returns a single 301 to a page returning a 200.
4. **Crawl the new site** for broken links, stray noindex tags and chains.
5. **Check robots.txt on both domains.** Don't block the old site, since Google needs to crawl it to see the redirects.
6. **Submit your new sitemap.** [Our XML sitemap guide](/blog/xml-sitemap-for-saas-sites-what-to-include-how-to-submit) covers the details.
7. **Use the Change of Address tool** in Search Console if you've moved domains. It isn't used for URL changes within a single domain.
8. **Test conversions end to end:** Forms, demo bookings, signups and payment.
9. **Inspect your priority pages** with URL Inspection, and request indexing for the most important ones.

## After launch: the first weeks

Check daily at first, then weekly.

**Search Console.** Watch the page indexing reports for both properties. You want old URLs moving to "Page with redirect" and new ones appearing as indexed. Look for unexpected 404s and server errors.

**Your logs.** Look for 404s from real visitors and crawlers, and add any redirects you missed.

**Traffic by page group.** Compare against your baselines, and use the same period the year before if your business is seasonal. A short dip can be normal, so look at whether it's recovering rather than judging by a single day.

**Update what you control.** Change links on your social profiles, marketplace listings, directories, email signatures and any partner sites. Ask your top linking sites to update to the new URL. That helps directly, and it's easier than a cold pitch.

**Keep the old domain.** [Google recommends](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes) keeping redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year. For a SaaS company, keep renewing the old domain well beyond that. Old links and customer bookmarks last for years, and letting it lapse could hand it to someone else.

## Rebrands have an extra job: AI answers

AI tools often keep describing a company under its old name for some time, since old text remains on the web. Help this along with a clear statement on your about page ("formerly OldName"), consistent wording across directories and review profiles, and updates to any third-party page you can influence. Include the old name in your press release, too. It's a good idea to test [how AI tools describe you](/blog/ai-brand-visibility-audit-manually-check-if-answers-cite-your-saas) before and after, then fix any errors at their source.

Also keep some content for people searching for the old name. They'll keep doing so for a long time. A short "OldName is now NewName" page can capture them, and it tells existing customers that they're in the right place.

## When things go wrong

If traffic falls and doesn't recover within a few weeks, work through this:

1. Pick your biggest losers by page, and check whether their redirects still work.
2. Check that the new pages are indexed, with the canonical you expect.
3. Compare the old and new versions of the page. Did the content, title or internal links change?
4. Look for rendering differences, using URL Inspection.
5. Check whether a Google update or a seasonal shift coincides with the fall.

Going back to the rebrand, a very common finding is that the new design dropped a big block of copy from a top-ranking page, or that one group of pages lost all its internal links when the navigation was rebuilt. Both are quick to fix once you've seen them.

If you've got a migration coming up, the earlier we see the plan, the more we can help. [Book a call with Comppound](/contact).

## Frequently asked questions

### How long does a site migration take to recover from?

It varies with the site's size and the type of change. Google has said that a medium-sized site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, with larger sites taking longer. Monitor by page group, and investigate if there's no recovery.

### How long should I keep redirects after a migration?

Google recommends as long as possible, generally at least a year. Keep the old domain registered well beyond that, as old links and bookmarks last for years.

### Will I lose rankings when I change domains?

Some temporary fluctuation is normal. Careful one-to-one redirects, keeping content in place and avoiding other big changes at the same time all reduce the risk, though nobody can rule it out.

### Should I change my design and domain at the same time?

Avoid it if you can. Changing several things at once makes problems hard to diagnose. If a rebrand forces it, keep URLs and content as stable as possible.

## About Comppound

Comppound runs SEO and AI search for B2B SaaS companies: a person sets the plan and reviews samples and every high-risk page, and AI speeds up production.

- [Check a page free](https://comppound.com/tools/seo-checker): Check one of your pages before you change anything else
- [See pricing](https://comppound.com/pricing): Want the content written, reviewed and published for you?