Check your Machine-Readiness Score

Search & AI Discovery

Replatform or redesign without dropping off the surfaces already won

For US small and mid-size businesses, med spas, home services, dental and solo-legal practices, about to move to a new site, new platform or new domain and unwilling to gamble the visibility they have already earned.

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Every engagement is directed by a technical specialist and reviewed before delivery.

What this is

A Migration and Redirect Integrity Audit is our specialist-directed safeguard for your website move: a replatform, a redesign, a CMS change, an HTTPS switch or a domain change. Before and around the cutover, we map every old URL that holds your visibility to its correct destination, engineer clean single-hop redirects, and verify canonicals, indexation directives and schema carry over intact so engines re-find and re-trust your new site. It is a focused audit, not the full optimization program. The deliverable is a verified redirect map, a canonical and indexation continuity check, a schema-parity check across priority pages, and a launch-day and post-launch verification pass with a ranked defect list. The outcome is a move that protects the presence you already hold across classic search and AI answers, rather than a silent slide that shows up in the pipeline six weeks later. It ladders into Search Surface Optimization, our coordinated method measured as the Machine-Readiness Score.

The problem

Why this matters now

A site move is the single highest-risk thing you can do to your search visibility, and the damage is usually invisible on launch day. The new site looks beautiful, everyone signs off, and the ranking and citation loss shows up weeks later when the phone goes quiet. By then the cause is buried under a dozen changes made at once.

The failure is almost always the plumbing, not the design. Old URLs that earned their position get redirected in long chains, or dropped entirely, or pointed at a generic homepage. A launch-day noindex tag meant for staging ships to production. Canonicals still point at the old domain. The schema that made the pages parseable never gets rebuilt. Any one of these quietly tells engines to forget you.

There is a newer risk on top of the classic one. AI answer engines lean on structured data and indexed pages to decide whether to cite a business. A move that destroys schema or breaks indexation costs rankings and can quietly stop ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers from naming you at all, and almost no one checks that surface during a migration.

And a botched move is expensive to undo. Independent data suggests most domain migrations do not fully recover within three months, and some never do. The cheapest time to protect visibility is before the switch is flipped, with the redirect map verified and the launch checklist enforced, not after traffic has already fallen.

How it works

The mechanism, made checkable

  1. 01

    Inventory what currently holds visibility, before anything moves

    We crawl your existing site to pull the URLs that actually earn presence: pages that rank on a frozen query panel, pages retrieved or cited in AI answers, and pages with meaningful links or traffic. This becomes your protected set. The rule is simple and it is where most in-house moves fail: a URL cannot be redirected if it was never inventoried, so we capture every valuable old URL on a dated list before your platform changes underneath it.

  2. 02

    Map every protected URL to its correct single-hop destination

    We match each old URL to the most relevant new URL, one to one, so your intent and earned authority carry across rather than dumping to a generic homepage. We engineer clean 301 redirects with no chains and no loops, because a redirect that hops through two or three URLs bleeds equity and slows re-indexing. Where a page has no true equivalent, we make a deliberate decision, redirect to the closest parent or retire it on purpose, and record the reason.

  3. 03

    Verify canonical and indexation continuity on the new build

    We check the launch-day items that silently erase a site: any staging noindex must be removed, canonicals must point at the live new URLs and not the old domain, robots directives and the XML sitemap must reflect the new structure, and HTTPS and trailing-slash handling must be consistent. These are the first non-negotiables on the checklist, ahead of the redirects themselves, because a page told not to index cannot appear on any surface, classic or AI.

  4. 04

    Confirm schema and answer-surface parity page by page

    For every priority page, we confirm the structured data that made it parseable on the old site is rebuilt on the new one, same types on the same URLs: Organization, LocalBusiness, Article, FAQ, Breadcrumb where they applied. This matters twice over now, because AI answer engines lean on structured data and clean indexation to decide who to cite, so schema parity moves from a nice-to-have to a launch-day requirement for keeping your AI-answer presence.

  5. 05

    Run a pre-launch and a post-launch verification pass

    Before cutover we test the redirect map against a staging or preview environment and flag every miss, chain, loop or wrong destination. After cutover we re-crawl the live site, confirm the protected set resolves with single 301s to indexable pages, confirm the sitemap is submitted and the change registered in Search Console, and watch for crawl errors, orphaned pages and soft 404s in the days that follow.

  6. 06

    Deliver a ranked defect list and a monitoring window

    We deliver a prioritized register of what is broken and what to fix first, ordered by how much visibility each item protects, in plain language your developer or platform team can act on. We hold a short monitoring window across the cutover so problems are caught while they are cheap to fix, and a technical specialist directs and reviews every finding before delivery.

What is included

What is delivered

  • A crawl-based inventory of the URLs that currently hold your visibility, ranking presence, AI-answer citation, links and traffic, captured as a dated protected set before the move.
  • A one-to-one redirect map from every protected old URL to its correct new destination, with deliberate, recorded decisions for pages that have no direct equivalent.
  • Redirect engineering guidance for clean single-hop 301s, with every chain, loop and missed mapping flagged for correction.
  • A canonical and indexation continuity check: staging noindex removal, canonical targets, robots directives, XML sitemap, and HTTPS and trailing-slash consistency on the new build.
  • A schema-parity check confirming the structured data types on priority pages are rebuilt on the same URLs after the move.
  • A pre-launch verification pass against staging or preview, testing the redirect map before the switch is flipped.
  • A post-launch verification pass on the live site, confirming single-hop resolution, sitemap submission and Search Console change registration, and watching for crawl errors, orphans and soft 404s.
  • A ranked defect register in plain language, ordered by the visibility each fix protects, ready to hand to your developer or platform team.
  • Specialist direction and review across the cutover, with a short monitoring window so problems surface while they are cheap to fix.

The outcome

What it moves

  • A verified redirect map that sends every valuable old URL to its correct new home with a single clean 301, so the authority you already earned moves with the site instead of evaporating.
  • A launch protected from the silent killers: no stray staging noindex shipped to production, canonicals pointing at live URLs, and a sitemap and robots setup that match the new structure.
  • Structured data confirmed present on priority pages after the move, so the pages engines and AI answers relied on to cite you stay parseable and eligible.
  • Early visibility into problems while they are still cheap to fix, caught in a monitoring window across the cutover rather than discovered weeks later in a traffic report.
  • A clear, ranked defect list your developer or platform team can act on directly, written in plain language and ordered by how much visibility each fix protects.
  • Confidence that the move protects your presence across both classic search and AI answers, the surfaces most migration checklists never touch.

What you get

What you get, and how it is priced

This audit is scoped to the specific move because a same-domain redesign, a platform change and a full domain migration carry very different risk and very different URL volumes. Every engagement starts by reading what you actually rank for and get cited for today, so nothing valuable is left off the redirect map. Below is exactly what the audit covers, how it is run, and the scope levels it comes in.

Same-Domain Redesign or Replatform Audit. For a redesign, CMS change or platform move that keeps your domain. We inventory the protected URL set, build and verify the one-to-one redirect map, run the canonical, indexation and schema-parity checks, and verify the cutover pre-launch and post-launch. Best when the address stays the same and the risk is structural. Scope is set to your URL count and confirmed in writing before work begins.Quoted
Domain Change or High-Complexity Migration Audit. For a domain change, an HTTPS move, or a combined replatform and redesign, the highest-risk category, where independent data suggests recovery is slowest. Everything in the redesign audit plus change-of-address handling, cross-domain canonical and redirect verification, and an extended post-launch monitoring window across the recovery period. Where possible we recommend phasing the changes so any drop can be isolated. Scoped to the move and agreed directly.Quoted

You see the full deliverables and cadence first, then a price built for your business, confirmed in writing.

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Straight answers

Questions about Migration & Redirect Integrity Audit

When should this happen, before or after the move?

Before, ideally weeks before cutover, because the cheapest time to protect visibility is while the redirect map and the launch settings can still be changed. We inventory your protected URLs and build the map against your staging or preview build, verify it before the switch is flipped, then run a second pass on the live site right after. Booking it after your traffic has already dropped means we are diagnosing the damage instead of preventing it, which is slower and more expensive to recover from.

You are based overseas. Does that matter for protecting a US site's visibility?

No. Raveneye Global, operated by RavenGroup Global Tech Private Limited, bills in USD and serves US businesses. Redirect integrity, canonical rules, indexation directives and schema parity are engineering facts that are the same wherever the specialist sits. We measure your presence against US engines, US buyer questions and US local surfaces, and stamp every reading with the exact locale and engine set. This is an engineering standard, not a time zone.

Who actually does the engineering work in this audit?

A technical specialist directs and reviews every engagement before delivery. We check the redirect map URL by URL, confirm the canonical and schema parity page by page, and a person who read your actual site writes the defect list. Tools make a specialist faster and more precise; they do not do the judging.

What makes this audit checkable?

The work is directed and reviewed by a technical specialist with years of hands-on work in search and AI visibility, following a published, checkable standard: named, dated sources, no invented numbers, and no guarantees about the result. The redirect map and the checklist are concrete artifacts you can inspect and hand to any developer.

Why is this scoped instead of a fixed price?

Because a fifteen-page dental practice moving CMS and a two-hundred-page home-services site changing domain are not the same job. The redirect map, the verification effort and the risk scale with your URL count and the type of move. Publishing one price would overcharge the simple move and under-deliver the hard one. We publish the full scope of the audit, review your current URL set, then agree the figure directly.

How do you actually measure whether the move worked?

We compare your protected set before and after. Pre-launch, every valuable old URL is on a verified map to a single indexable destination. Post-launch, we re-crawl your live site to confirm each one resolves with a single 301, that canonicals and schema carry over, and that the sitemap and change of address are registered. We also re-read your presence on a frozen query and AI-answer panel across the cutover. We report what we observed, with dates and variance.

Can you guarantee I keep my rankings and traffic through the move?

Search results personalize and AI answer selection is undocumented and volatile, so no one controls the outcome. What we commit to is method and verification: a complete, clean, single-hop redirect map, canonical and indexation continuity, schema parity, and a checked launch. Industry evidence is clear that a disciplined redirect and continuity process is what separates a fast recovery from a long slide; we measure and report the work rather than promise a number.

Do I need the full optimization program too, or is this enough on its own?

This audit stands on its own as protection for a move, and many clients start here precisely because a migration is imminent. It is a focused unit, not the whole method. Once your move is safe, it ladders naturally into Search Surface Optimization, the coordinated program that reads and moves your whole Machine-Readiness Score across all four pillars. Protecting what you have is the sensible first step, growing it is the next one, and neither obligates the other.

Will my developer or platform be able to act on what you deliver?

Yes, that is the point. The redirect map is a clean URL-to-URL list, and the defect register is written in plain language and ranked by the visibility each fix protects, so whoever builds or hosts your site can implement it directly. We hand over checkable artifacts, not vague advice, and you can verify the fixes on the live site afterward so nothing is left assumed.

Related

Where this connects

Surface Intelligence Audit

The broader specialist-directed diagnostic that reads your visibility across one or more surfaces and returns a ranked, sourced fix list. The natural read of where you stand once the move is safe.

Explore

Search Surface Optimization

The flagship coordinated program this audit ladders into: one method that reads and moves your whole Machine-Readiness Score across classic search, AI answers, reputation and the technical foundation.

Explore

The Raveneye Methodology

The published method behind every engagement: the four pillars, how the Machine-Readiness Score is built, and the sourcing standard that governs what we will and will not claim.

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Provenance

Sources

  • SALT.agency, study of 1,052 crowdsourced domain migrations (finding that only 27 percent of domain migrations fully recover within 90 days), cited 2026
  • Shopify Enterprise, SEO Site Migration Checklist 2026: 12 Steps to Protect Rankings, Traffic and Revenue (1:1 redirect mapping, avoid redirect chains, preserve title tags, meta, H1 and schema on the same URLs)
  • Digital Applied, SEO Site Migration in 2026: Zero-Traffic-Loss Playbook (documented Volusion-to-Shopify replatform where organic clicks fell from roughly 1,200 to about 500 per day due to redirect chains and missed 301 mappings; 'remove noindex' and 'rewrite canonicals to live URLs' as the first launch-checklist items; schema loss as a first-class AI-citation risk)
  • web.dev, Core Web Vitals, Google (published field thresholds referenced for technical continuity)
  • Google Search Central, Site moves with URL changes and Change of Address guidance (301 redirects, sitemap submission, and change-of-address registration for domain moves)

Begin with where the business stands.

Submit a query See the method

No obligation. The deliverable is a measured starting position and the corrections that move it most.