Migrate your website without losing the rankings you've spent years building.
A website migration service should feel like a handover, not a hostage situation. We move your site, content and SEO value across cleanly, so nothing breaks and nothing gets lost.
For Founders, Marketing Leads & IT Decision-Makers
You didn't choose your current platform. You do get to choose the next one.
Marketing leads inherit platforms they never picked. IT managers get handed migration projects with three sentences of context. Business owners just want the website to keep working while somebody, somewhere, changes what it's built on. We speak to all three, plainly.
Every website migration service we run is scoped, mapped and tested before a single page goes live, covering content, redirects, integrations and search visibility, backed by a process built to protect what's already working, not just replace it. That's true whether we're untangling technical SEO issues, migrating a CMS, or moving hosting entirely.
Why Teams Come to Us
“We're scared a migration will tank our rankings.”
We map every URL and redirect before launch, so your search rankings carry across intact instead of resetting to zero.
“Nobody here actually understands our current CMS.”
We document everything as we go, plain English, no jargon, so your team understands the new platform better than they ever understood the old one.
“We can't afford the site going down mid-migration.”
We build and test the new site in parallel, then switch over in one planned move, so visitors never see a gap.
“The last agency quoted us and the number kept moving.”
We scope the whole migration upfront, content audit included, so the number you sign off on is the number you pay.
The Gecko Way™
Our approach to successful projects
Before we touch anything, we work out what's actually there, not what the last handover document says is there. That means a full content inventory, a technical audit of your current platform, and honest conversations with whoever's been quietly holding the site together. Most migrations we're brought in to fix went wrong because nobody did this properly first time round: pages nobody knew existed, redirects nobody documented, integrations nobody remembers setting up. We'd rather spend the extra week here than discover a missing product feed three days before go-live. If you're the only person who understands how your site actually works, this is the phase where that stops being true. We'll also want early access to your domain name records, current hosting environment and, where relevant, source access to whatever's powering the site now, so we know the real database size and complexity we're working with before we scope anything.
With the full picture in front of us, we decide what genuinely needs to move as-is, what needs rebuilding, and what's been dead weight for years and can finally be left behind. This is where we flag content that's technically outdated, structurally broken, or quietly hurting your SEO rather than helping it. We map every URL to its new destination and build the redirect plan here, not as an afterthought during launch week. You'll get a clear view of scope and cost at this stage, not a vague estimate that creeps upward once we're already committed. This is also where we flag any content model restructuring that's needed, tightening up the technical SEO issues and internal linking that have built up over the years, rather than carrying them across to the new platform unchanged.
We build your new environment properly, migrating content, rebuilding what needs rebuilding, and setting up every redirect we mapped in the previous phase. Everything happens in a staging environment that mirrors production, so your live site keeps running exactly as it is while the new one takes shape behind the scenes. Integrations, forms, tracking and third-party tools all get rebuilt and tested individually before we let them near real traffic. Nothing goes live because a deadline said so. It goes live because we've checked it. Throughout the build we keep rollback options ready, back up your database and any connected database applications or application files before we touch them, and follow the same test method on every page rather than spot-checking a few.
A migration that leaves you just as dependent on us as you were on the last platform hasn't actually solved anything. We walk your team through the new site properly: how content works, how to make routine changes, where things live and why. If you're the sole person managing digital for your organisation, this is the phase built specifically for you, so a holiday or a handover doesn't put the whole site at risk. We'd rather over-explain now than field the same panicked email every time someone leaves. That includes making sure your team understands the new content management system itself, not just the pages that sit inside it.
Go-live is a single, planned switch, not a scramble. We monitor rankings, traffic and technical performance closely in the days after launch, catching anything that needs a quick fix before it becomes a problem you hear about from a customer first. From there, your site moves into Gecko Support, with the same team who ran the migration on hand, not a different department who has to be brought up to speed from scratch. We keep a close eye on organic visibility, keyword rankings and overall SEO performance in the weeks after go-live, alongside website uptime, so nothing quietly slips while everyone's attention has moved on.
What's Included in a Website Migration Service
Platform & CMS Migration
Moving from one platform to another, whether that's a legacy CMS, a patched-together WordPress build, or a system you've simply outgrown. Our CMS migration services cover the full technical move: content structures, templates, taxonomies and user permissions, rebuilt properly on the new platform rather than force-fitted to resemble the old one.
We work in Umbraco day in, day out, so if that's your destination, you're moving onto ground we know better than most agencies in the country. If you're migrating away from another CMS entirely, we'll tell you honestly what transfers cleanly and what's worth rebuilding from scratch, rather than promising a like-for-like copy that quietly degrades your site's structure and performance.
That's just as true whether you're moving off a WordPress multisite setup, another CMS-based website, or onto Umbraco Cloud specifically. Where a platform change also means rethinking content types or structure, that content model restructuring happens here too, and if it's the right moment for UI/UX design changes alongside the move, we'll flag that rather than assume you want a like-for-like rebuild.
Content Migration & Cleanup
Every page, image, document and piece of metadata gets audited before it moves, not just copied across wholesale. We flag duplicate content, outdated pages and anything actively hurting your SEO, and give you a clear recommendation on what to keep, merge or retire. Content that does move gets checked for formatting, broken internal links and missing alt text along the way.
This is also the point where years of content debt, the blog posts nobody's touched since 2019, the product pages for services you no longer offer, finally get dealt with, rather than dragged along to yet another platform. This covers more than the words on the page, images, video and other media files move across too, along with the metadata transfer that's easy to overlook.
Landing pages built for a specific campaign get the same scrutiny as core service pages during the content transfer, so nothing time-sensitive gets lost in the move.
URL Mapping & Redirects
Every single URL on your current site gets mapped to its destination on the new one before launch, with proper 301 redirects set up so visitors and search engines land exactly where they should. This is the single biggest technical risk in any migration and the most common thing agencies get wrong under time pressure.
We build the redirect map as its own dedicated piece of work during the evaluation phase, not as a rushed spreadsheet the night before go-live, and test it thoroughly before your new site takes a single visitor. Redirect mapping like this also gives us a chance to review your URL structure as a whole, tidying up URL structures that have grown messy over time rather than cloning your existing website URL set up verbatim.
We rebuild your XML sitemap, add canonical tags where duplicate content risks confusing search engines, and run tools like Screaming Frog to catch 404 errors before they go live rather than after. You'll get a full 301 redirect list to review before launch, covering every one of the 301 URL redirects we're putting in place, all captured in the same redirect map from day one.
SEO Continuity & Rankings Protection
A migration is one of the few things that can genuinely tank years of SEO progress overnight if it's handled carelessly. We track your rankings, organic traffic and technical SEO signals before, during and after the move, so you've got a clear before-and-after picture rather than a vague sense that something's changed. Structured data, meta information, internal linking and page speed all get carried across and checked, not just the visible content.
If something does dip after launch, and occasionally a small, temporary dip is normal, we're watching for it and acting fast, not waiting for you to notice first. SEO preservation is the whole point of this tab, not an afterthought bolted onto a platform move. We check your backlink profile and domain authority are carrying across intact, alongside meta tags, so nothing about how search engines read your site quietly resets, and incoming links pointing at old URLs land somewhere valid rather than a 404 error.
We track everything through Google Search Console and Google Analytics, the same analytics tools you're probably already using, rather than switching you onto something unfamiliar mid-migration. That gives us a clear read on organic search traffic and keyword rankings before and after launch, not just a gut feeling that something's changed.
Some agencies treat this as a bolt-on SEO migration services add-on. We treat it as core technical SEO work, running a keyword audit alongside the redirect map, checking Semrush data where it's useful, and tracking search engine rankings and organic visibility through Google Tag Manager and Search Console, so performance tracking is in place from day one rather than scrambling to set it up after your Google search rankings have already moved.
Hosting & Infrastructure Migration
Moving your website often means moving where it lives too. We handle the hosting and infrastructure side of the migration, including DNS changes, SSL certificates, server configuration and any third-party integrations tied to your current setup, all planned to minimise downtime rather than cause it. Where your current hosting has been part of the problem, slow, unreliable, or a black box nobody in your team can explain, we'll talk you through better options as part of the move rather than just replicating what wasn't working.
This is genuinely a hosting migration in its own right, not just a side effect of moving your CMS. We handle domain name migrations, DNS records and any domain name server changes, take full site backups before we touch anything, and keep rollback options ready throughout in case anything doesn't go to plan. SSL setup and certificate setup are checked alongside the move from HTTP to HTTPS where that's still outstanding, along with whatever protocol support your new host needs to enable, and DNS propagation, which can take up to 48 hours to fully settle, gets factored into the go-live plan rather than treated as a surprise. If your current setup includes email accounts or needs a proper mailbox migration, that gets scoped in from the start too, so nobody's inbox goes down along with the website.
Behind the scenes, we check hosting servers, control panel access and hosting plans line up with what your site actually needs, whether that's more scalable resources for growth or straightforward database management for a smaller site. Malware scanning and DDoS protection get reviewed as standard, not sold as an upsell, and where CRM data mapping is part of the picture, that's tested alongside everything else rather than bolted on afterwards.
Post-Migration Testing & Support
Before your new site goes anywhere near real traffic, we test it properly: every form, every integration, every redirect, across devices and browsers, not just a quick click-through on desktop Chrome. After launch, we keep a close eye on performance, rankings and any issues that surface in the first few weeks, the period when problems are cheapest and fastest to fix.
From there, ongoing support sits with the same team who ran your migration, so you're never explaining your own site's history to someone new.
What's Included in a Website Migration Service
Platform & CMS Migration
Moving from one platform to another, whether that's a legacy CMS, a patched-together WordPress build, or a system you've simply outgrown. Our CMS migration services cover the full technical move: content structures, templates, taxonomies and user permissions, rebuilt properly on the new platform rather than force-fitted to resemble the old one.
We work in Umbraco day in, day out, so if that's your destination, you're moving onto ground we know better than most agencies in the country. If you're migrating away from another CMS entirely, we'll tell you honestly what transfers cleanly and what's worth rebuilding from scratch, rather than promising a like-for-like copy that quietly degrades your site's structure and performance.
That's just as true whether you're moving off a WordPress multisite setup, another CMS-based website, or onto Umbraco Cloud specifically. Where a platform change also means rethinking content types or structure, that content model restructuring happens here too, and if it's the right moment for UI/UX design changes alongside the move, we'll flag that rather than assume you want a like-for-like rebuild.
Content Migration & Cleanup
Every page, image, document and piece of metadata gets audited before it moves, not just copied across wholesale. We flag duplicate content, outdated pages and anything actively hurting your SEO, and give you a clear recommendation on what to keep, merge or retire. Content that does move gets checked for formatting, broken internal links and missing alt text along the way.
This is also the point where years of content debt, the blog posts nobody's touched since 2019, the product pages for services you no longer offer, finally get dealt with, rather than dragged along to yet another platform. This covers more than the words on the page, images, video and other media files move across too, along with the metadata transfer that's easy to overlook.
Landing pages built for a specific campaign get the same scrutiny as core service pages during the content transfer, so nothing time-sensitive gets lost in the move.
URL Mapping & Redirects
Every single URL on your current site gets mapped to its destination on the new one before launch, with proper 301 redirects set up so visitors and search engines land exactly where they should. This is the single biggest technical risk in any migration and the most common thing agencies get wrong under time pressure.
We build the redirect map as its own dedicated piece of work during the evaluation phase, not as a rushed spreadsheet the night before go-live, and test it thoroughly before your new site takes a single visitor. Redirect mapping like this also gives us a chance to review your URL structure as a whole, tidying up URL structures that have grown messy over time rather than cloning your existing website URL set up verbatim.
We rebuild your XML sitemap, add canonical tags where duplicate content risks confusing search engines, and run tools like Screaming Frog to catch 404 errors before they go live rather than after. You'll get a full 301 redirect list to review before launch, covering every one of the 301 URL redirects we're putting in place, all captured in the same redirect map from day one.
SEO Continuity & Rankings Protection
A migration is one of the few things that can genuinely tank years of SEO progress overnight if it's handled carelessly. We track your rankings, organic traffic and technical SEO signals before, during and after the move, so you've got a clear before-and-after picture rather than a vague sense that something's changed. Structured data, meta information, internal linking and page speed all get carried across and checked, not just the visible content.
If something does dip after launch, and occasionally a small, temporary dip is normal, we're watching for it and acting fast, not waiting for you to notice first. SEO preservation is the whole point of this tab, not an afterthought bolted onto a platform move. We check your backlink profile and domain authority are carrying across intact, alongside meta tags, so nothing about how search engines read your site quietly resets, and incoming links pointing at old URLs land somewhere valid rather than a 404 error.
We track everything through Google Search Console and Google Analytics, the same analytics tools you're probably already using, rather than switching you onto something unfamiliar mid-migration. That gives us a clear read on organic search traffic and keyword rankings before and after launch, not just a gut feeling that something's changed.
Some agencies treat this as a bolt-on SEO migration services add-on. We treat it as core technical SEO work, running a keyword audit alongside the redirect map, checking Semrush data where it's useful, and tracking search engine rankings and organic visibility through Google Tag Manager and Search Console, so performance tracking is in place from day one rather than scrambling to set it up after your Google search rankings have already moved.
Hosting & Infrastructure Migration
Moving your website often means moving where it lives too. We handle the hosting and infrastructure side of the migration, including DNS changes, SSL certificates, server configuration and any third-party integrations tied to your current setup, all planned to minimise downtime rather than cause it. Where your current hosting has been part of the problem, slow, unreliable, or a black box nobody in your team can explain, we'll talk you through better options as part of the move rather than just replicating what wasn't working.
This is genuinely a hosting migration in its own right, not just a side effect of moving your CMS. We handle domain name migrations, DNS records and any domain name server changes, take full site backups before we touch anything, and keep rollback options ready throughout in case anything doesn't go to plan. SSL setup and certificate setup are checked alongside the move from HTTP to HTTPS where that's still outstanding, along with whatever protocol support your new host needs to enable, and DNS propagation, which can take up to 48 hours to fully settle, gets factored into the go-live plan rather than treated as a surprise. If your current setup includes email accounts or needs a proper mailbox migration, that gets scoped in from the start too, so nobody's inbox goes down along with the website.
Behind the scenes, we check hosting servers, control panel access and hosting plans line up with what your site actually needs, whether that's more scalable resources for growth or straightforward database management for a smaller site. Malware scanning and DDoS protection get reviewed as standard, not sold as an upsell, and where CRM data mapping is part of the picture, that's tested alongside everything else rather than bolted on afterwards.
Post-Migration Testing & Support
Before your new site goes anywhere near real traffic, we test it properly: every form, every integration, every redirect, across devices and browsers, not just a quick click-through on desktop Chrome. After launch, we keep a close eye on performance, rankings and any issues that surface in the first few weeks, the period when problems are cheapest and fastest to fix.
From there, ongoing support sits with the same team who ran your migration, so you're never explaining your own site's history to someone new.
"The bit clients never see is the redirect map. Get that right and a migration is boring, which is exactly what you want it to be for something this important."
Cristiano Martins, Senior Full Stack Developer at Gecko
Migration Case Study
A national charity came to us mid-migration after a previous agency left their redirect plan half-finished, with rankings already starting to slip. We rebuilt the mapping from scratch, ran the move as a single planned switch, and kept their support team in the loop throughout, rather than leaving them to discover problems after the fact. The result was a clean handover with no lasting drop in visibility. Their organic search traffic held steady throughout the change, with no unexpected dip in the weeks that followed. (Placeholder)
It depends on the size of your site and how much content needs auditing rather than just copying across, but most migrations we run take between six and ten weeks from kickoff to go-live. Smaller sites with a straightforward content set can move faster. The timeline gets locked down properly during the evaluation phase, once we know exactly what we're dealing with, rather than quoted blind at the start. If you're moving onto Umbraco Cloud specifically, hosting setup is quicker since we're already deeply familiar with it. Whether you call it a website migration or SEO migration services, the scoping process is the same.
A small, temporary dip is normal for most migrations and usually recovers within a few weeks as search engines re-crawl and re-index your redirected pages. A lasting drop is almost always a sign the redirect mapping or technical SEO wasn't handled properly. We track your rankings closely before, during and after the move specifically so we catch and fix anything unexpected fast, rather than you finding out from a slump in enquiries. We keep an eye on organic visibility broadly, not just individual keyword positions, and check organic search traffic overall too, since a migration can affect how the whole site is perceived by search engines, not just where individual pages rank.
A CMS migration specifically means moving your content and structure from one content management system to another, WordPress to Umbraco, for example. A website migration is the broader move: it can include a CMS change, but also covers moving hosting providers, restructuring your site architecture, or consolidating several sites into one, with or without changing platform. If you're not sure which applies to you, that's exactly the kind of thing worth talking through before we scope anything.
We build and test your new site in a staging environment while your current one keeps running as normal, then switch over in one planned move once everything's checked and ready. Done properly, most visitors never notice the change happening. A short maintenance window is sometimes unavoidable for the final DNS switch, but we'll tell you exactly when and how long, rather than leaving you to find out.
Every page gets audited before it moves, not copied across automatically. We'll flag duplicate, outdated or underperforming content and give you a clear recommendation on what to keep, merge or retire, but the decision is always yours. Content that does move gets checked for formatting issues, broken links and missing metadata as part of the process, so you're not just inheriting the same problems on a new platform.
Not for us, and it's more common than you'd think. Plenty of the teams we work with have inherited a platform nobody currently in the business originally chose or set up. Part of our process is auditing what's actually there, technically and structurally, rather than relying on you to explain it to us. By the end of the project, your team will understand the new platform properly, documented in plain English, whether or not anyone fully understood the old one.
Every third-party integration tied to your current site gets identified and tested individually during the build, rather than assumed to "just work" on the new platform. Some transfer cleanly, others need reconfiguring or rebuilding against the new CMS's setup. We'll flag anything that needs extra attention early, during the evaluation phase, so it's factored into the timeline and cost rather than surfacing as a surprise near launch.
That's a genuinely common starting point, and it's worth talking through before committing to either. If your current platform, hosting or CMS is holding you back technically, a migration solves that. If the platform's fine but the site itself needs a rethink, that's a different conversation. We'd rather scope the right project for you than sell you a migration you don't actually need. Either way, the aim's the same: protecting your online presence and existing search visibility while the change happens, not just moving files from one place to another. If your content marketing plans depend on a platform that can't keep up, that's often the real signal it's migration time, not just a redesign.
Yes. Every migration includes a documented URL redirect map and an SEO continuity plan covering meta data, structured data, internal linking and page speed, agreed with you before launch, not after. You'll get visibility into this at the evaluation stage, so you know exactly what's being carried across and why, rather than trusting it's been handled. We'll also make sure you or your team has independent access to Search Console itself, not just a report we send you, covering Google Search Console verification, sitemap submission and structured data checks. If Google Tag Manager is already part of your setup, we migrate that container across intact rather than rebuilding your tracking from scratch, so you're not relying on Google search rankings alone to tell you something's wrong. SEO preservation runs through this plan end to end, not as a separate line item.
It depends on the size of your site, how much content needs auditing, and whether you're changing CMS, hosting, or both. Rather than give you a number that creeps upward once we're underway, we scope the whole project during the evaluation phase and give you a figure that holds. If you'd like a straight answer for your specific site, book a free consultation and we'll talk it through properly.
