It would be an understatement to say that website migrations are peculiar and complex. If not approached with preparation, severe consequences, and issues can arise. If your online business heavily relies on organic visibility and uptime, a substandard website migration can cause major revenue drops. By having an understanding of the website migration process and all the risks associated with it, you can take the necessary steps to mitigate the risks.
When it comes to website migration there are two pathways. You can either carry out the whole process on your own (which comes with several risks) or you can make use of website migration services from a reputable company. The choice depends on your circumstances, preferences, and technical skills required for the website migration process.
So let’s see what are risks involved with website migration and how you can tackle them. But before that, we should have a basic understanding of what is website migration.
To put it simply, website migration refers to the procedure of moving data or information from one website to another or transitioning a website from one platform to another such as
Magento to WooCommerce migration. Despite its apparent simplicity, website migration is an intricate and demanding endeavor that demands substantial technical expertise and skills.
Various types of website migrations are available for website owners to choose from. Examples include protocol migration, top-level domain migration, and website redesign, among others, which are commonly pursued migration forms.
At some point, nearly every website owner contemplates migrating their website. This might stem from a range of technical or business factors that necessitate a website migration. Irrespective of the cause, it's essential to recognize that website migration can be a risky venture, particularly when executed hastily or with oversight.
Consequently, website owners should allocate sufficient time to the migration process. However, the question arises: how much time is typically required for website migration? The subsequent section will furnish an answer to this query.
Top 10 Risks Involved with Website Migration
Now that we have understood what is website migration, let’s dig deep into all the risks that come with the website migration process.
Website Temporarily Unavailable
The first and foremost problem with website migration is the unavailability of the business website. The worst part is that it is inevitable. As long as the website is under migration, it cannot be used therefore resulting in downtime.
If prolonged, website migration can turn into an expensive affair. Since most eCommerce businesses generate a major chunk of their revenue through their website, a long downtime can greatly affect business profitability.
Solution: To solve this problem there are a few steps that you can follow
- If you are moving the complete website from one platform to another, don’t cancel your current hosting plan. Start the migration process and keep your current hosting plan too.
- Download all necessary backup files. To do so, log in to your cPanel and download compressed backup files.
- Upload these backup files to the new server and make sure that the database of the new website is working properly.
A decline in Organic Traffic
User engagement is a pivotal factor contributing to a website's prosperity. Furthermore, among website proprietors, organic traffic is held in high esteem due to the substantial effort invested in cultivating valuable organic visitors.
It is a prevalent occurrence for a website's organic traffic to experience fluctuations and declines during and after the migration phase. The pace at which traffic dwindles varies from one website to another. Nevertheless, by adopting a meticulously crafted migration strategy, it becomes plausible to recover the diminished traffic and mitigate the loss of traffic during the actual migration proceedings.
This goal can be achieved by implementing a robust URL mapping strategy encompassing all links on your website, both old and new. Additionally, it's imperative to conduct a thorough review to minimize content gaps between the old and new versions of the website.
Solution: Make sure that you've established a migration plan that includes a comprehensive URL mapping strategy to transition from old to new URLs. Furthermore, strive to minimize any content gaps that may exist between the previous and updated versions of the websites.
Downgraded User Experience (UX)
User experience stands as the cornerstone of a website's success. A robust
website UX ensures heightened website success and garners broader market acceptance. As a result, website owners exert their utmost to provide users with a top-tier encounter by focusing on User Interface (UI) design.
Frequently, website owners opt for website migration and overhaul the entire website's UI to achieve this goal. While this benefits new users of the website, those who have been with the platform for a while might not appreciate the sudden shift in design.
This response occurs because long-standing users have grown accustomed to the previous design and are well-versed in its navigation and features. In these scenarios, the act of redesigning a website can inadvertently diminish the experience for these loyal users, thus counteracting the very purpose of the website's redesign and migration.
Solution: The key to this is creating a comprehensive redirect map. You need to ensure you've set up redirects on all pages that have received traffic in the past year. This will automatically steer users to the corresponding new page.
Increase in Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate is every website owner’s nightmare. In case you aren’t aware of what bounce rate is, it is the percentage of users that leave the website after a single-page session.
An increased bounce rate is one of the major risks that a website owner faces after its migration. Generally speaking, the bounce rate of a website increases if the website’s host or design has been changed during its migration.
Solution: Ensure content mapping is discussed during the migration planning phase. Gaps in content relevancy may bring insight into which content pieces need to be migrated to maintain a similar traffic flow.
Unable to Measure Website Analytics
Analytics are of high value to every website owner. Detailed analytics enables website owners to understand how successful their current strategies are. This understanding forms the foundation of future strategies and helps in delivering a top-notch UX.
However, it is commonly known that website migration can have a devastating impact on the quality of analytics. To elaborate, it is common for the analytics or tracking codes of a website to be removed during the migration. This irrecoverable data loss can turn out to be a tremendous setback for the business.
As a result, it is suggested to have the same tracking codes throughout the migration process to avoid the loss of analytical information on the website.
Solution: Keep analytics and tracking codes the same throughout the migration and ensure they are implemented on the new site.
Loss of Content
Running a website for a long time will leave you with a plethora of content and information in the form of posts (blogs), user comments, etc. Naturally, this content available on the website would be followed by a large number of users regularly.
One of the biggest risks that a website possesses during migration is the loss of this content from the website. While some websites only lose a small part of their content, others are at risk of complete content loss.
Solution: To prevent content loss during website migration, meticulously plan and execute the process. Create backups of all content before migration, use automated tools for seamless transfer, validate content integrity post-migration, and maintain the old site temporarily for reference. Thorough testing and continuous monitoring are vital to ensure a smooth transition with minimal risk of content loss.
Broken Links
Broken links are a website disaster in terms of SEO and ranking. As a result, it is always a good idea to eliminate broken links from the website and optimize the technical SEO of your website.
If you are migrating the URL of your website, the existing internal and external links on the webpage will certainly redirect the users to the 404-error page, as the old links are now broken and not available on the internet. This will, in turn, degrade the overall user experience of the website and will reduce its ranking on the search engine.
Solution: Update and optimize existing or new internal links on the new site. Reclaim historic external backlinks to pass equity to the new pages (301 redirects help some with this but updating the backlinks to the new URL is better).
Indexation Bloat
Indexation bloat occurs when there are too many URLs being crawled and indexed by Google. The main causes of this are not implementing redirects on time or not updating or submitting the sitemap of the new site in the Google Search Console.
Solution: Implement redirects on time and resubmit the new sitemap via Google Search Console.
Decrease in SERPs Ranking
Website owners and digital marketers work day and night to earn a rank on the search engine. Having a high rank on the SERP is directly beneficial for the website’s organic traffic and conversion rate.
However, in many cases, migrating a website can negatively impact the ranking of a website. To explain, migrating a website’s CMS will result in all of its links getting changed. Therefore, you will need to inform the search engine about your website’s migration as well as the location of your new links.
Solution: One of the easiest ways to achieve this objective is to use 301 redirects and redirect the old links to the new ones. It is worth noting that this aspect of website migration needs immediate attention if you do not want to lose your website’s SEO juice.
Loss of Meta Data
Meta information such as meta tags and descriptions form an essential part of a website’s search engine optimization. Google uses this information to rank the website and divert relevant user traffic to the webpage.
In many cases, migrating a website can result in loss of meta information, due to which Google might fail to recognize the webpage and reduce its rank on SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
Solution: Before migrating a website, it is a good idea to take a backup of all the meta information of a website and its web pages. This will enable you to avoid losing your hard-earned rank on the search engine in case the meta information isn’t optimally transferred to the new webpage.
Summing It All Up
In conclusion, the process of website migration involves inherent complexities that demand careful consideration and strategic planning. The potential risks associated with this undertaking can significantly impact a website's performance, user experience, and search engine ranking. These risks encompass downtime, diminished organic traffic, compromised user experience, increased bounce rate, loss of content, broken links, indexation bloat, decreased SERPs ranking, and loss of metadata.
To counter these risks, a proactive approach is essential. Adequate preparation, meticulous content mapping, thorough testing, and seamless implementation of redirects play a pivotal role in mitigating the challenges of website migration. Leveraging automated tools, maintaining content integrity, and consistently monitoring the migration process are key components to ensure a successful transition. Moreover, by preserving analytical data and optimizing meta information transfer, website owners can safeguard their hard-earned rankings and maintain a favorable online presence. Therefore, understanding the potential risks and adopting strategic solutions are imperative to achieve a seamless and successful website migration.