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Do not skip the before stage. It is the only one that cannot be done later.
| # | Stage | Task | Why | Done |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | Export every current URL with its traffic and rankings | This is the baseline; without it you cannot prove what broke | ||
| Before | Export current titles, descriptions and H1s | |||
| Before | Build the redirect map: every old URL to exactly one new URL | The map is the deliverable, not an afterthought | ||
| Before | Check the map for chains and loops | A redirect to a redirect loses signal at every hop | ||
| Before | Note which pages are deliberately being removed | A 404 you chose is fine; one you did not is not | ||
| During | Deploy redirects at the same time as the new site | |||
| During | Keep the old sitemap available for a fortnight | It helps the crawler find the redirects | ||
| During | Submit the new sitemap | |||
| After | Crawl the new site and check for 404s and chains | Within 24 hours | ||
| After | Check the top 20 pages by traffic resolve correctly | Do these by hand | ||
| After | Watch coverage and rankings weekly for six weeks | Recovery is normal for a fortnight; a month is a problem | ||
| After | Compare against the baseline from task 1 |
Tasks 3 and 4 are where migrations are won. Everything else is execution.