Meridian Supply
A B2B distributor moves platform with account pricing, ERP integration and a redirect map built from crawl and analytics data.
Replatformed without losing ground
03 · Build
Migration and modernisation
Migrations are the highest-risk routine project in digital. The business case is usually sound and the execution is usually where it goes wrong – traffic drops, redirects are incomplete, content is lost, and the recovery takes longer than the migration did.
We run migrations as engineering projects with a defined risk workstream. The measure of success is that nothing visible happens: the same URLs resolve, the same content is found, the same conversions happen, and the platform underneath is better.
Why migrations go wrong
Almost always because the migration was treated as a launch rather than a transfer of accumulated value. Content, URLs, search equity, tracking and integrations each need explicit handling, and each is commonly assumed to be someone else's job.
- Organic traffic dropped after a relaunch and has not recovered.
- Redirects were built from the sitemap rather than from a crawl and analytics, so long-tail URLs were missed.
- Content was migrated by copy and paste, and some of it did not arrive.
- Structured data, canonicals and metadata were rebuilt from scratch and changed silently.
- Analytics stopped recording conversions and nobody noticed for a month.
- The old platform was switched off before the new one was verified.
What we migrate
CMS migration
Moving content between systems with the structure intact – content modelling on the target platform, automated transfer where volume justifies it, media handling, and editorial workflow reconfiguration.
E-commerce replatforming
Catalogue, customers, order history, pricing rules and integrations moved between commerce platforms, with the category URL structure and its accumulated search equity preserved.
Hosting and infrastructure migration
Moving between providers or into a modern deployment setup, with DNS cutover planned, TLS in place ahead of time, and rollback available at each step.
Legacy modernisation
Incremental replacement of systems that cannot be switched off in one move – running old and new in parallel, migrating by section, and retiring the old system only once the new one is proven.
Domain and structure changes
Domain moves, consolidation of multiple sites, and URL restructures – the highest-risk category, and the one where a complete redirect map matters most.
Diagram
How we run a migration
The same sequence every time. The pre-launch work is where migrations are won.
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Full inventory before anything moves A complete crawl of the existing site combined with analytics and Search Console data, so the URL list reflects what is actually indexed and actually receives traffic – not just what the CMS thinks exists.
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Benchmark the current state Rankings, organic landing pages, conversion rates, Core Web Vitals and index coverage recorded before the move. Without a baseline you cannot tell a migration problem from a seasonal dip.
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Map every URL Old URL to new URL, one to one wherever a match exists, with a documented decision for every URL that has no equivalent. Redirect chains are resolved to a single hop.
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Migrate content with parity checks Automated comparison of content, metadata, structured data, internal links and media between old and new, so gaps surface before launch rather than in a ranking report.
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Verify on staging Crawl the staging site, validate redirects against the full URL list, confirm indexability directives, confirm analytics and conversion tracking, and confirm every integration. Staging is protected from indexing.
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Launch at a low-traffic window, with rollback ready DNS TTL reduced in advance, the old environment kept available, and a defined rollback decision point.
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Monitor intensively afterwards Daily crawl error, index coverage and traffic checks for the first weeks, with a named person responsible for acting on them. Most recoverable migration problems are only recoverable if found quickly.
What you receive
- Complete URL inventory from crawl, analytics and Search Console
- Pre-migration performance and visibility benchmark
- Full redirect map, implemented and tested
- Content, metadata and structured data parity report
- Staging verification report
- Launch runbook with rollback procedure
- Post-launch monitoring reports for the agreed period
- Post-migration comparison against the benchmark
How this runs
Every engagement follows the same sequence, with a defined output at each stage and nothing proceeding on an assumption that has not been written down. Build work sits inside that process rather than alongside it.
Work involving migration and modernisation
Common questions
Will we lose search traffic?
A short period of fluctuation while search engines recrawl and reprocess is normal, even on a well-run migration. A sustained loss is not, and it is what the redirect mapping, parity checks and monitoring exist to prevent. Nobody can honestly guarantee ranking outcomes, and we do not.
How long does a migration take?
The move itself is usually a single planned window. The work around it – inventory, mapping, parity checking, verification and monitoring – is typically three to eight weeks depending on site size and integration count.
Can you migrate content we no longer want?
A migration is a good moment to retire content, but it should be a deliberate decision with a redirect target for anything that has traffic or links. Silently dropping pages is the most common self-inflicted migration injury.
Related services
Related reading
Planning a replatform or a domain move?
Talk to us before the launch date is fixed. Migration risk is managed in the weeks before the move, not in the week after it.
Or email hello@applystudio.com – we reply within one business day.