The checklist we use before we move any website

Use this before you change platform, redesign with new page addresses, or move to a new domain. If every page keeps exactly the same address, you still need checks 3 to 6.

1. List every page Google knows.
Pull old addresses from several places, because each one misses some:
- your sitemap (often yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml);
- Search Console: Performance, Search results, the last 16 months, Pages tab, then Export (the pages that appeared in Google); and Indexing, then Pages (what Google has indexed);
- Google Analytics 4: Reports, Engagement, Landing page, the last 12 months, then download the CSV;
- a crawl of the live site if you can (Screaming Frog's free version crawls up to 500 addresses).
Put them in one list, one address per row, with clicks or visits where you have them, and remove duplicates.

2. Map each old address to its new one.
Every old address gets one new address: the closest matching page, not the homepage. Google's site-move guidance asks for permanent (301 or 308) redirects that go straight to the final address, with no chains, and says to keep them "generally at least 1 year": https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes
Only a page with no real equivalent should go to its parent page (a category or service page) or be left to return a 404.

3. Keep what works on the pages that bring enquiries.
Find your top pages by enquiries (or by clicks if you don't track enquiries). On their new versions, keep the page title, the main heading and the main content close to what they were. Change the look; don't rewrite the pages that pay the bills in the same week you move them.

4. Rehearse on a copy.