Moving your church website to a new platform or provider is often necessary — outgrowing a DIY builder, switching to better support, or simply refreshing a tired design. But it’s also the single most common way churches accidentally lose the search rankings and traffic they’ve spent years building.
The good news: rankings loss during migration is almost always avoidable. It happens because of missed technical steps, not because Google “resets” your authority when you move providers. Here’s exactly how to migrate safely.
Why migrations go wrong
When a site moves — a new domain, a new platform, or even just a redesigned URL structure — Google has to rediscover and re-evaluate every page. If old URLs simply disappear without direction, Google treats them as gone, and any ranking history attached to them is lost rather than transferred. Most ranking drops after a migration come down to one root cause: broken or missing redirects.
The pre-migration checklist
Before you touch anything, do this first:
- Export a full list of your current URLs. Every page and post your current site has indexed — check your CMS export or Google Search Console’s Pages report for the complete list.
- Record current rankings and traffic as a baseline. Note your top-performing pages in Search Console so you have something to compare against after the move.
- Map every old URL to its new equivalent. This is the single most important step. Each existing page needs a clear destination on the new site — even if the new site’s structure or design changes completely.
If you’re planning a full provider switch and want help thinking through what to look for in a new setup, our guide on choosing the right church website provider is worth reading alongside this checklist.
During migration: the technical essentials
1. Set up 301 redirects for every old URL
A 301 redirect tells Google (and visitors) that a page has permanently moved, passing across the ranking value from the old URL to the new one. This is non-negotiable — without it, each old page’s history is essentially discarded. Every URL from your export list needs a corresponding redirect, not just your homepage and main pages.
2. Keep URL structures as close to identical as possible
If /about-us/ can stay /about-us/ on the new site, keep it. Unnecessary URL changes create more redirects to manage and more room for error. Only change a URL structure if there’s a genuine reason to.
3. Update your XML sitemap and resubmit it
Once the new site is live, generate a fresh sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console under the new property. This helps Google discover and re-crawl your pages faster rather than waiting for organic recrawling.
4. Carry over your metadata
Title tags, meta descriptions, and header structure shouldn’t be lost in the move. If you’re changing platforms, make sure whoever handles the build exports this data rather than rebuilding every page’s SEO fields from scratch.
5. Verify internal links still work
Broken internal links after a migration are common and easy to miss. Check that navigation menus, footer links, and in-content links (like the ones between your blog posts) all point to working new URLs, not old broken ones.
6. Re-verify Google Search Console and Analytics
If you’re changing domains, you’ll need to add and verify the new domain as a fresh property in Search Console, and use the Change of Address tool if it’s a full domain change. If you’re keeping the same domain but changing platforms, reverify tracking codes are correctly installed on the new site.
After migration: what to monitor
- Check Search Console’s Coverage report weekly for the first month, watching for a spike in “Not Found” errors — this usually means a redirect was missed
- Watch your baseline pages specifically — compare the traffic and rankings of your top pages before and after, not just overall site totals
- Test your redirects manually by visiting 10–15 of your most important old URLs directly and confirming they land on the correct new page
- Keep old hosting/domain access for at least a few months where possible, so redirects can stay live while Google fully re-indexes the new site
A realistic timeline
Some fluctuation in rankings during the days immediately after migration is normal and expected — this is Google re-crawling and re-evaluating your pages, not a sign something has gone wrong. With redirects properly in place, most sites recover to their previous ranking positions within 2–4 weeks. If rankings haven’t recovered after 6-8 weeks, that’s the point to investigate — usually a missed redirect or a technical issue on the new site is the cause.