New dental website without losing rankings: a migration checklist

Website migration SEO for dental practices comes down to one idea: every page Google already knows about should either still exist at the same address or point permanently to its replacement. The ways it goes wrong are predictable: pages whose addresses changed with no redirect, treatment pages that were dropped in the redesign, and a "do not index" setting left switched on from the build. This checklist covers the planning, the redirects, launch day and the weeks after, based on Google's own guidance on site moves.

What counts as a website migration?

Any change that alters how Google finds and reads your pages. For a practice, that usually means one or more of these:

• A redesign on the same domain, often with new page addresses, such as /implants becoming /treatments/dental-implants.
• A new platform, such as moving from one website builder or content management system to another.
• A new domain, for example after a rebrand or a change of ownership.
• A new host with the addresses unchanged.

Google treats these differently. It has one guide for site moves with URL changes and another for moves without URL changes, such as a change of host. If your page addresses change at all, follow the first.

What Google says to expect

Some movement is normal. Google says that with any significant change to a site, you may see ranking fluctuations while it recrawls and reindexes. For medium-sized websites, it says it can take a few weeks or more for Google to start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones. Google also advises keeping redirects "for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year".

A short wobble is expected. A lasting drop usually means something was missed, and the steps below are how you avoid that.

Website migration SEO planning: before the build starts

1. Confirm who owns the domain. Make sure it is registered to the practice and that you have the login, not only your web designer.
2. Get access to Google Search Console. Google recommends verifying both the old and new sites there. If you do not use it yet, set it up now, so you have data from before the change.
3. List every page on the current site. Use the sitemap, your analytics and the pages report in Search Console. Include blog posts, team pages and old landing pages from past campaigns.
4. Mark the pages that matter. Note which pages bring visitors from search and which have links from other websites. For most practices these are the home page, treatment pages, location pages and a few articles.
5. Decide what happens to each page. Keep it, merge it into a better page, or retire it. Nothing should simply disappear by accident.

Treatment pages deserve particular care. If your old implants page ranked well because it explained the treatment in depth, a new design with two short paragraphs in its place will not hold that position, however good it looks.

Build the URL map and set permanent redirects

The URL map is a spreadsheet with every old address in one column and its new address in the next. It is the most important document in the whole project.

Google's guidance on redirects is clear on the details:

• Use permanent, server-side redirects. Google recommends HTTP permanent redirects such as 301 or 308. It says permanent redirects tell its systems the new page should be the one shown, while temporary redirects do not.
• Redirect each old page to its closest new equivalent. Google warns against redirecting many old URLs to one irrelevant page such as the home page, which "might be treated as a soft 404 error".
• Avoid chains. Redirect straight to the final address. Google suggests keeping chains ideally to no more than three hops.
• Update internal links on the new site to point at the new addresses, not at old ones that redirect.

Keep what Google already understands

Redirects pass Google from the old page to the new one, but the new page still has to deserve its position. Carry across:

• Page titles and meta descriptions that were working, or better versions of them.
• The depth of content on treatment and location pages.
• Structured data, such as your practice details and opening hours, if the old site had it.
• Internal links between related treatments and from the home page to your main services.

Check the information the GDC expects on a practice website survives the redesign too. Its guidance on advertising lists the practice name and address, contact details including email and phone, the GDC's address or a link to its website, details of your complaints procedure and the date the website was last updated. It also expects dental professionals named on the site to show their qualifications and GDC registration number. A redesign can easily drop the footer where these details used to sit.

The staging site trap

Many new websites are built on a hidden staging address and blocked from Google while in development, with a robots.txt block or a noindex setting. That is sensible, as long as the block comes off at launch.

Google's advice is to prepare in advance what robots.txt should look like once the move starts, and to keep a list of pages where noindex must be removed. After launch, it says not to forget to remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only needed for the migration. A forgotten block is one of the easiest ways to disappear from search, and one of the easiest to check.

Website migration checklist for launch day

1. Switch on the redirects and test a sample from every section of the URL map. Google suggests the URL Inspection tool for single URLs and scripts for larger lists.
2. Remove any noindex settings and robots.txt blocks from the build.
3. Check every page has a self-referencing canonical tag, as Google recommends.
4. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
5. If the domain itself has changed, use the Change of Address tool. Google says it applies to moves between domains or subdomains only, and needs a 301 redirect from the old home page to the new one.
6. Update the website link on your Google Business Profile, your NHS website listing, Bing Places, Apple Maps, social profiles and directories.
7. Check online booking links, contact forms, call tracking and analytics all work on the new site.
8. Test the site on a phone, including the click-to-call button.

The eight weeks after launch

Google suggests watching the Sitemaps and indexing reports in Search Console. At first the new sitemap will show few indexed pages and the old one many, and that should reverse over the following weeks. Each week, check:

• Pages not found. Any old address returning an error needs a redirect adding.
• Indexing. New pages should be appearing in Google's index.
• Search queries and clicks. Compare with the weeks before launch, allowing for seasonal patterns.
• Rankings and map position for your practice name and main treatment searches in your town.
• Calls, bookings and enquiries, the numbers that actually matter.

Google also suggests contacting sites that link to your old pages and asking them to update the links. For a practice, that usually means local directories, suppliers, sponsorships and press coverage. A weekly rank check, whether from a rank tracker or Practice Radar, makes it obvious within days if a treatment page has slipped.

Moving host without changing addresses

If you are only moving to a new host, the risk is lower but not zero. Google recommends lowering the DNS time to live at least a week in advance, copying the site to the new host and testing it, switching DNS, and keeping the old hosting running until traffic to it reaches zero. It says a temporary dip in crawling straight after the move is normal.

Website migration cost and questions to ask your web designer

The cost of a migration varies with the size of the site and who does the work, so there is no standard price. What matters is that the SEO work is in the quote, not an afterthought. Ask before you sign:

• Will you build a URL map from the current site, and can I see it before launch?
• Who sets up the redirects, and how will you test them?
• Will treatment and location pages keep their content, or will it be rewritten?
• How will the staging site be blocked, and who removes the block at launch?
• Who updates Search Console, the sitemap and the Google Business Profile link?
• Will the redirects stay in place for at least a year, including if we later change provider?

If the answers are vague, that is your warning. For wider context, see SEO for dental practices, and if you want a baseline before you start, the free search audit shows where your current site stands.

Common migration mistakes and how to avoid them

None of this is difficult, but all of it has to happen. Hold your web designer to the checklist and a new website can be the start of better results rather than a setback.