Website migrations, specifically domain migrations, are often seen as one of the more complex parts of SEO.
As SEO pros, we are tasked with mitigating as many risks and variables as possible so that the business doesn’t see organic performance issues – either at all or for a longer than necessary period of time.
Over the years, I’ve sat in a number of pitch meetings for migration projects, and I’ve heard the words:
“The other agency said there should be no traffic loss at all, it will be like a light switch.”
More often than not, the prospect has gone with the salesperson’s pitch, and monitoring the website in Ahrefs and other tools, you see situations like this:
A domain migration that hasn’t recovered organic traffic more than two years after migration.
Most businesses can’t sustain an organic traffic drop of that magnitude for that length of time and not feel a serious impact on business operations.
So this leads us back to the question we’re asked by stakeholders when scoping and pitching for SEO migration projects:
How long should an SEO migration take?