The website migration procedure after a rebranding

Migrating a website after an acquisition or a rebranding is an operation that largely concerns the change of domain name or of the content management system (CMS). Changing the URLs is also part of this process. There are different types of website migration namely technical migration, editorial migration and design migration. But how do you migrate a website after an acquisition or a rebranding? And what procedure should you follow after a change of branding?

In the context of a rebranding or a brand acquisition, in addition to the usual data backup phases, several other steps must be followed to carry out a website migration in SEO terms.

Before migrating a website after an acquisition or rebranding, it is essential to back up the data. You can do this directly on your Windows PC, that is on your personal drive, or transfer all the site's data to another computer using the services offered by your Windows software or your operating system.

Also think about your Google Analytics history, which does not back up your site but your statistics: the retention period for detailed data is limited there (14 months at most in Google Analytics 4). Export what you will need to compare traffic before and after the migration.

The other solution is to back up the data on the old site before transferring the data.

As for the migration itself, it is carried out with the export and import tools of your CMS or with dedicated migration tools, some of which are available as open source.

A test phase is necessary to diagnose any malfunctions following the data transfer.

An SEO-level test can also be carried out by crawling the new site with a tool such as Screaming Frog, before and then after go-live. This kind of software quickly finds broken links, missing tags and failing redirects.

During the data backup phase, it is also important to list the URL links in order to build sitemaps that will make your life easier. The aim is to make it easier to index your pages on search engines such as Google. Making a list of internal links and of the external links pointing to the site, that is backlinks, in order to redirect them, also helps improve the SEO of the new site after the acquisition or rebranding.

Migrating a website after an acquisition or a rebranding is essentially about changing the domain name. This phase involves changing the address of your website, unlike a domain transfer, where the same domain name only moves to another registrar.

To limit the SEO impact of changing domain after a brand acquisition, you will need to choose the domain name carefully, then register it with a registrar such as OVHcloud or Gandi.

Note that when changing domain name, redirects play an important role: each old URL must point to its new address with a 301 redirect. You will then need to notify Google of the domain name change with the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console.

From a marketing standpoint, website migration after a rebranding most often goes hand in hand with the evolution of the brand, in particular the presentation of new products or services.

Thus, migration following an acquisition or rebranding can have an impact on page traffic.

After choosing the domain name, you will therefore need to launch a co-branding operation. Indeed, assessing the site's audience is necessary when changing the brand name. In this case, the SEO teams must join forces to improve the company's brand image online, using the various SEO techniques at their disposal. Branding makes it possible to set up an operation that gradually teases the brand's new logo, for example, or any other change that will have an impact on prospects. This advertising campaign is ideal for raising awareness of the brand or the company.

A preparatory phase is important to carry out the website migration after a rebranding, in particular the change of domain. A complete map of the site is therefore needed to avoid crawl errors and allow the new site to reach a correct level of traffic on Google.

The success of a website migration during an acquisition or a rebranding will largely depend on the project planning phase. It is therefore essential to first define a migration scope in relation to the website redesign you are aiming for, that is a partial or total change. Then you will need to determine the objectives of this rebranding and identify the SEO risks, with the help of certain artificial intelligence tools.

For this type of migration, you will need to check the rights to the new brand and the new domain name (trademark registration with the INPI or the EUIPO, for example) and be aware of the legislation in force, available on EUR-Lex for EU law. It is also important to define the SEO specifications regarding the URL structure, meta titles and meta descriptions. Improving the site's performance also comes into play, using a measurement tool such as Google Analytics.

Finally, an inventory of the content affected by the migration during an acquisition or rebranding must be carried out, by crawling the site or by exporting the content from your CMS (WordPress or Joomla, for example).

• technical migration
• design migration
• editorial migration