How Long Should An SEO Migration Take? [Study]

Website migrationsspecifically domain migrationsthey are often considered one of the more complex parts SEO.

They are becoming more common as companies consolidate websites and assets to reduce costs and consolidate efforts as more channels and platforms come into play.

As SEO experts, it’s our job to mitigate as many risks and variables as possible so that the company doesn’t see organic performance issues – not at all or longer than necessary.

When we conducted this study in 2023, we looked at 171 migrations and found that it took 229 days (on average) for third-party tools to reflect organic traffic for the new domain to return to the same levels as before the original domain migration ; 42% did not return at all.

The reason we repeated this study is because we think it’s important for businesses (and SEO marketers) to have data to work with in order to make informed decisions when planning domain migrations.

Over the years, I have attended numerous pitch meetings where other pitching agencies have promised that there will be no traffic loss at all during the migration, and more often than not, adequate preparation, follow-up or expectation setting has been done.

Study methodology

This study aims to explore and provide a data-driven answer to the question “How long should an SEO migration take” to help both in-house SEOs and consultants provide better estimates and communication with non-SEO stakeholders for their projects migrations.

This is based on last year’s study where we looked at 171 domain migrations. This year we expanded the data set to 892, thanks to fellow SEO professionals who responded to requests for information on various Slack channels and X (Twitter).

Using third-party tools, we then measured the number of days it took Domain B (the new domain) to achieve the same estimated organic traffic as Domain A (the old domain).

The data was collected on October 22, 2024.

Bias factors

Bias in a quantitative study refers to systematic errors that can significantly distort results, leading to incorrect conclusions.

These biases can occur at any stage of the research process, such as the design, data collection, analysis and interpretation stages.

Bias undermines the validity and reliability of study results and can lead to wrong conclusions.

Where possible, we took steps to mitigate bias that would affect the study.

• Selection bias: We have worked to eliminate this as much as possible, with a high percentage of data coming from Ahrefs (unfiltered) and an open request to the SEO community. This should negate our own inputs from the sectors in which we specialize. This has led to different domains in different sectors.
• Measurement deviation: Since we are using a third-party tool, the bias here is limited to the scope of the tool, database updates, and keyword pool. Since we are comparing two domains and assuming they match in terms of the target set of keywords, this bias should be mitigated.
• Confounding bias: Since we are comparing date ranges within the same tool, there are no correlations in terms of data analysis.
• Publication bias: This study should have been published and submitted regardless of the percentage/data. So this bias is mitigated.

The dataset contained domains of various uses, from SaaS lead generation, legal and financial to blogs, local retail and e-commerce.

Study findings

The key conclusions from the domain study are:

• On average it took 523 days so that domain B shows the same level of organic traffic as domain A.
• The shortest recorded times were 19, 22, 23 and 33 days.
• 17% of domain migrations in the sample did not see organic traffic return to the same levels after 1000 days. This is a significant improvement over the previous study’s 42%.
• We classified three migrations as “In Progress” because they were less than two years old and traffic was slow to return.
• We classified 25 migrations (2.8%) as “inconclusive” because domain B traffic reached domain A levels but was not stable.

From the original dataset, a number of domains have dropped out and have now been redirected to domain squatters/private domain sellers.

Since these are not “true” domain migrations, and the new domain was never intended to maintain the same keywords and traffic, they are discarded and not included in the data.

Why do migration results differ?

No two websites are the same and there are several variables in website migration that we can control – and a few that we cannot.

The migration discourse in the SEO industry hasn’t really changed for a number of years, with basic best practices established and then the basics layered with situational needs to mitigate risks.

Google is rebuilding its index on a page-by-page basis, so opening new crawl paths and URLs in advance could speed up the initial stages of discovery and indexing.

From experience, launching a new domain and URL structure 24-48 hours before performing the migration ie. implementing redirects, can speed up the process as Google has already started indexing and processing new URL paths in most cases. This combined with the change address tool in Google Search Console can smooth out a lot of early migration lag.

Backlink and migration profiles

While searching for domains for this study, I also asked the community why there are “time lags” in migrations.

Natalia Witczyk suggested the idea that it has to do with backlink profiles and how long it takes Google to process a profile transfer:

In my experience, in order for rankings and traffic to return to normal levels, the backlink profile must be re-indexed and the redirects must be reflected.

This takes almost no time if the backlink profile does not exist, so the return to normal traffic levels happens quickly. If the backlink profile is extensive, there is more to re-index and it would take more time for Google.

This prompted me to look at the total number of reference domains each domain had and there is some correlation with this being the case, but with a large number of outliers – probably due to the way the migration was done.

For more information and best practices on website migrations, I recommend reading the articles below:

More resources:

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