By Mehdi HassanWhat are the warning signs of a bad website migration provider?
The warning signs of a bad website migration provider are guarantees about rankings, vague scopes, no plan for URLs and redirects, and silence about what happens after launch. Each one tells you the provider is focused on the build and not on protecting the traffic and leads your current site already earns.
A migration is risky because it changes URLs, templates and content at once. Before you hire anyone, be sure a move is the right call; our decision framework for migrating your website helps, and so does knowing when not to migrate. If you've decided to go ahead, use the checklist below on every proposal you receive.
Why is 'zero traffic loss guaranteed' a red flag?
'Zero traffic loss guaranteed' is a red flag because nobody controls how Google recrawls and re-evaluates a moved site. A careful migration keeps the risk low and the recovery fast, but a guarantee promises an outcome that depends on a search engine, not on the provider.
Rankings can shift for weeks after launch while Google processes redirects and new templates. Seasonality and algorithm updates land at the same time and blur the picture. An honest provider tells you what they'll do to protect traffic, how they'll monitor it and what they'll fix if something drops. Read the guarantee's small print, too: a refund on part of the fee doesn't bring back the leads a traffic drop costs you.
Promise the process, not the ranking.
Is an automated converter the same as a migration?
No. An automated converter or cloner copies the visible output of pages, and a migration rebuilds the site on the new platform with its structure, CMS, URLs and SEO intact. Our research found no real converter exists between Webflow and Framer, from Wix to anything, or from Framer to code, so every move between platforms is a manual rebuild.
Converters and AI rebuilders are useful as a starting point. Coding agents genuinely speed up the build. The problem is when a tool's output is sold as the finished migration, with no redirect mapping, CMS modelling, metadata check or device QA. Our guides to AI-assisted website migration and website cloner tools and SEO explain where these tools help and where they quietly break things.
Website migration red flags: the checklist
Use these website migration red flags to screen proposals. One flag isn't always a deal-breaker, but three or more means you should keep looking.
- Guaranteed rankings or zero traffic loss. No one controls Google's re-evaluation of a moved site.
- No URL inventory in the proposal. They haven't counted your pages, posts and assets, so they can't price or protect them.
- No redirect map. Redirects are mentioned as 'handled' with no sheet, no owner and no testing step.
- A converter sold as the full job. 'We'll import your site automatically' with nothing about CMS structure or QA.
- Price quoted before any discovery. A fixed number without knowing templates, collections, locales or integrations.
- 'Full migration' with no written scope. You can't tell what's included, so you can't tell what's missing.
- Nothing about forms and integrations. Lead capture, CRM sync and analytics are where leads quietly disappear.
- No plan for metadata and structured data. Titles, descriptions, canonicals and schema aren't mentioned.
- Launch on a Friday or in your peak season. Nobody is watching when things break, or traffic is at its most valuable.
- No post-launch monitoring. The job ends at launch, with no checks on crawl errors, 404s or traffic.
- Unclear ownership. The provider registers the domain, hosts the site or owns the CMS account.
- They push a platform before hearing your needs. Every answer leads to the one tool they sell.
What should a good migration proposal include?
A good migration proposal includes a URL inventory, a redirect plan, a content and CMS plan, an integrations list, a launch QA checklist and post-launch monitoring. It also names who owns each piece and what's out of scope.
Item | What good looks like | Red flag version |
|---|---|---|
URL inventory | Every page, post and asset listed with traffic and backlinks | 'We'll move all your pages' |
Redirect map | Old URL to new URL sheet, reviewed by you, tested after launch | 'Redirects are included' |
Content plan | What's kept, merged, rewritten or retired | Everything copied as is |
CMS model | Fields, references and templates defined before import | Import first, fix later |
Integrations | Forms, CRM, analytics and pixels listed and tested | Not mentioned |
Launch QA | Device, form, metadata and redirect checks with owners | 'We'll test it' |
Monitoring | Search Console, 404 and traffic checks after launch | Ends at go-live |
Our website migration SEO checklist lists every SEO step in order, so you can check a proposal against it. If you're weighing who should do the work, our comparison of DIY, freelancer and agency migrations sets out the trade-offs.
What questions should you ask a migration agency?
Ask questions that force specifics: how they inventory URLs, who writes and tests redirects, what happens to forms and what they do if traffic drops. Vague answers to these are the most reliable red flag of all.
- How will you find every URL, including old blog posts, PDFs and images with backlinks?
- Can I see an example redirect map and launch checklist from a past project, with client details removed?
- How do you handle URL patterns that change, like category prefixes or date-based post URLs?
- Which integrations will you test before launch, and how?
- What do you monitor after launch, for how long, and what's your process if traffic drops?
- Who owns the domain, hosting, CMS account and code when you're done?
For a fuller set, our guide to hiring a Webflow or Framer migration agency covers selection criteria, and our list of web design agency red flags covers warning signs that apply beyond migrations.
Edge cases that catch providers out
Some sites carry risks that generic migration plans miss. Multilingual sites often change locale structure, for example moving from subdomains to subfolders, which turns every translated URL into a redirect; our multilingual website guide covers the structure choices.
Sites built as single-page React apps may have content that search engines struggle to render, so the migration is also an indexing fix; see React SPA to SEO-friendly website.
Large blogs often have tag and archive pages that earn links, and these get lost when only posts are migrated. Ask any provider how they'll handle each of these if they apply to you.
Our verdict on spotting a risky migration provider
Trust the provider who talks about risk plainly and shows you the documents that manage it. Distrust the one who removes risk with a promise.
