Move the site without losing the signals.

Record the existing public state before changing the platform, hostname, protocol, or URL structure. A baseline makes omissions and regressions visible while they are still easy to correct.

• Export indexable URLs from sitemaps, analytics, Search Console, backlinks, and a site crawl.
• Map each valuable old URL to the closest equivalent new page instead of sending everything to the home page.
• Record current titles, canonicals, robots directives, response codes, structured data, and internal links.
• Prepare DNS TTLs, certificate coverage, redirect rules, monitoring, and rollback ownership before launch.

Test from outside the production network as soon as the migration is live. Redirects, final-page signals, and discovery files must agree on the same preferred destinations.

• Confirm old URLs return a direct permanent redirect to a relevant, indexable 200-status destination.
• Check DNS, certificate coverage, HTTPS behavior, canonical tags, robots directives, and metadata on final URLs.
• Update internal links and XML sitemaps to final URLs so crawlers do not depend on redirects for discovery.
• Monitor Search Console indexing, crawl errors, canonical selection, impressions, and high-value landing pages after launch.