Logic title

If the site has already been promoted, then surely the necessary title, description, keywords were written on it. With the last two, everything is pretty clear, but with the first there are nuances.

As a rule, title is written according to a certain given logic depending on the nesting of the page and its type. For large projects, they are often collected automatically.

After moving, you should check that the logic of forming the title is still consistent with the logic of the new site structure on pages of all levels. Very often it gets confused, especially if before that the output of the headers was implemented by self-written algorithms. Somewhere there may be manually defined formulations that are also easy to miss and better rechecked.

References from secondary sections

In sections of articles, news, blogs, often hide links that link to more inaccessible materials. When you move these links will be many. Since these are not the most popular sections of the site, they are usually overlooked, and then they don’t understand where so many broken links come from.

It is necessary to check the functionality of links by automated services, for the same reason that I voiced earlier: it is faster and more reliable. At the same time, you will find outgoing links to missing pages on other sites, if any.

It is also worth mentioning that in such sections you can often find other problems, for example, the same duplicates. We have had cases when entire parallel tree-like catalogs were discovered that were securely hidden on the previous site.

In general, with regard to broken links, moving should be perceived as a good reason to carefully inspect everything, to carry out a “general cleaning”. Usually such small blots accumulate for years and are not corrected, because everyone is busy with more important things. Especially if SEO is not an individual, but a full-time marketer or programmer who does not constantly monitor the state of the site. This weill not only hurt Search Engine Optimization but overall marketing campaign.

Robots.txt

A file is often formed in CMS, and this is the first reason to check it for syntax. And if you write it manually, then this is the second reason.

You have changed CMS, and therefore the logic of the internal organization of the site. It is necessary to re-close the service sections from indexing, to verify that what should be open was not accidentally closed.

Rel = "canonical"

It is clear that the attribute needs to be transferred. But do not forget to thoroughly verify that it is spelled correctly and is still consistent with your structure, ways of displaying content, etc.

It happens that the wording is simply transferred from the old site to the new one, without delving into what it meant exactly and what called for a search robot. And get the loss of the index of entire sections of the site.

Micro-marking

Not that this is a very common problem, but it does occur. When transferring to a new CMS, micro-marking can be lost, and for the large volume of tasks that inevitably arises during the course of work, it is very easy to forget about it: it does not affect the display and functionality of the site in the browser. And you will notice this much later, when links to your pages begin, for example, post on social networks. It’s better to double-check and test everything yourself in advance.

Of course, if the site is transferred under the control of an SEO specialist, then this will not happen. But we also know such cases when, when migrating, micro-markup is perceived as redundant code and is purposely deleted.

Bonus! Rights Confirmation Files

Analytics systems, metrics, call tracking services require confirmation of ownership of the site. One way to confirm is to place a special file in the root partition. The method is popular because it does not require editing the page code. So, the conditional marketer or the director himself can connect the service without involving a specialist. But there is a nuance.

When moving, counter codes are rarely forgotten to be transferred to the new version (although it also happens), but confirmation files are lost much more often.

Of course, this will not directly affect the positions, but it will be superfluous work to restore statistics, and you obviously do not need it. And data loss is always bad.

General recommendation

Here, far from everything that will affect the position and display of the site in the search: I described only those points that in our practice are most often forgotten by customers, and we find during an audit.

It’s best to carry out the migration under the supervision of an SEO specialist. This immediately removes most of the questions, because we always knows where to look and what to check (this directly affects his salary). He will tell you at the design stage all the pitfalls.