I’ve seen this happen more times than I’d like. A company decides to modernize their website.
- New platform.
- New design.
- Better performance.
Everything looks great — until traffic falls off a cliff.
That’s exactly what happened to a manufacturer we were brought in to help after a migration went sideways.
- Rankings tanked.
- Revenue dipped.
- Years of organic visibility vanished almost overnight.
And no — it wasn’t bad luck.
What Actually Broke
When we dug in post-migration, the issues were painfully familiar.
- Not exotic.
- Not cutting-edge.
- Just missed fundamentals.
Here’s what we found:
- Missing 301 redirects, leaving behind a trail of 404 errors
- WWW vs non-WWW canonicalization issues, splitting authority
- Broken XML sitemaps, preventing proper indexing
- Duplicate H1 and H2 tags, confusing search engines about page intent
- On-page optimization lost in translation during the platform switch
Individually, each of these is manageable.
Together, they told Google:
- “This is a different site. We’re not sure what matters anymore.”
So Google did what it always does when signals get muddy — it pulled back.
Why Site Migrations Are So Dangerous
Here’s the part most teams underestimate. A site migration isn’t just a design change. It’s an identity change in the eyes of search engines.
URLs, structure, internal links, canonicals, and content hierarchy all help Google understand:
- what a page is
- what it’s about
- and why it deserves to rank
Break those connections, and Google doesn’t “penalize” you — it simply forgets. That forgetting is what hurts.
What We Did to Stabilize Things
Our first move wasn’t content. It was triage.
We:
- Restored missing redirects
- Fixed canonical inconsistencies
- Rebuilt sitemaps
- Cleaned up heading structure
- Re-aligned pages with their original intent
Only after the technical foundation was stable did we move on to:
- strategic page optimization
- content rebuilding
- authority reinforcement
Traffic didn’t bounce back overnight — but it did come back. Because the problem wasn’t demand. It was discoverability.
The Mistake Companies Keep Making
Most migrations are led by:
- design teams
- developers
- platform vendors
SEO is often an afterthought. That’s backwards. A migration is not the time to “see what happens.” It’s the time to be painfully intentional.
If You’re Migrating, Read This First
Before you touch a production site, you should:
✓ Audit every URL that has rankings or traffic
✓ Map every 301 redirect — every single one
✓ Preserve technical architecture wherever possible
✓ Confirm canonicals, sitemaps, and indexability
✓ Plan for post-migration monitoring and rapid fixes
This isn’t paranoia. It’s risk management.
Why This Matters More for B2B and Manufacturing
Industrial and manufacturing companies can’t afford visibility gaps.
Your buyers:
- research quietly
- compare vendors over time
- search long before they reach out
If your site disappears during a migration, those opportunities don’t wait for you to fix it — they move on.
The Bottom Line
Site migrations are high-risk events. One missed redirect can undo years of SEO work. One indexing issue can erase pages that quietly drove real revenue.
If you have a migration coming up — especially for a B2B or industrial site — don’t wing it.
- Have a plan.
- Have monitoring.
- Have someone watching search like a hawk.
If you’re unsure what that looks like, let’s talk before you flip the switch.
Your rankings — and your revenue — will thank you.