Why migrations fail due to poor coordination | Lillian Purge

Why migrations fail due to poor coordination

Website migrations are one of those projects that look neat and contained on a planning document but become brutally complex the moment real people get involved. In my experience, they are one of the clearest indicators of how mature a business really is when it comes to digital decision making. When migrations go wrong, it is rarely because of one technical mistake, and almost never because Google suddenly changed its rules. In my opinion, migrations fail because people were not aligned, not communicating clearly, and not working from the same plan.

I have worked on domain migrations, CMS changes, ecommerce replatforms, HTTPS moves, and full brand rebuilds. When they work well, the outcome is quiet, rankings wobble briefly then stabilise, traffic returns, and the business moves forward stronger. When they fail, the impact is slow, painful, and expensive, lost rankings, lost leads, confused reporting, and months of recovery work that could have been avoided.

From experience, poor coordination is not just a contributing factor, it is the root cause.

 What a website migration really involves

I think one of the biggest reasons migrations fail is that people underestimate what a migration actually is. A migration is not just launching a new website. It is a chain of interconnected changes, each one affecting how search engines crawl, understand, and trust the site.

A typical migration might involve changes to URLs, page templates, navigation, internal linking, content structure, metadata, schema, hosting, and sometimes even how pages are rendered. Each change on its own might seem harmless, but together they can dramatically alter how Google views the site.

From experience, I have seen teams treat migrations as design or development projects, with SEO added as a final sense check. By that stage, the structure is already locked in, redirects are rushed, and key pages have often been altered or removed without understanding their value.

In my opinion, SEO during a migration is not a box to tick at the end. It should be the framework that holds the entire project together.

Why poor coordination is the real problem

When a migration goes wrong, people often point to broken redirects, missing pages, or indexing issues. Those are visible problems, but they are symptoms, not causes. The cause is nearly always poor coordination between people.

Poor coordination shows up in subtle ways. Developers change URL structures because it feels cleaner. Designers reorganise navigation to improve usability. Content teams rewrite pages to sound more modern. Marketing pushes for a launch date that fits a campaign. SEO assumes they will be informed of changes, but they often are not.

From experience, each team makes decisions that are logical within their own bubble. The problem is that migrations do not tolerate isolated decision making. Every change affects something else, and without a single joined up view, the site loses continuity.

I have seen migrations where no one could answer a simple question, which pages are mission critical for organic traffic. That lack of clarity is how damage happens quietly and quickly.

Migrations fail long before launch day

In my opinion, most migrations fail during planning, not execution. By the time the new site goes live, the outcome is already decided.

If there is no detailed migration plan that documents what is changing, what is staying the same, and why, every team fills in the gaps with assumptions. Developers assume redirects will solve everything. Designers assume visual improvements outweigh structural risk. Content writers assume merging pages improves clarity. SEO assumes someone else is tracking the full picture.

From experience, assumptions compound. A page that ranked well is rewritten, its URL changes, internal links disappear, and the redirect points to a loosely related page. Technically, nothing is broken, but context is lost, relevance is diluted, and rankings drop.

This is why I always say that migrations are not technical projects, they are coordination projects.

The danger of unclear ownership

One of the most damaging coordination issues I see is unclear ownership. Everyone is involved, but no one is accountable for outcomes.

In many projects, the agency owns the build, the client owns the content, marketing owns the messaging, IT owns deployment, and SEO sits in an advisory role. When something goes wrong, responsibility is diluted, and recovery becomes reactive rather than strategic.

From experience, the safest migrations are the ones where a single person or team owns the migration end to end, with authority to say no to changes that introduce risk. That owner understands SEO, development constraints, business goals, and timelines, and ensures that decisions are made with full context.

Without that ownership, migrations become a collection of well intentioned changes that do not add up to a stable whole.

Communication breakdown between teams

I think people underestimate how often migrations fail simply because information was not shared. Small details get lost, launch dates move, last minute changes are made, and no one updates the SEO plan.

I have seen redirects signed off, only for new URLs to be changed again a week before launch. I have seen content removed because it was not included in the design wireframes. I have seen staging sites indexed accidentally because no one confirmed robots settings before launch.

From experience, these are not skill issues, they are communication failures. When teams work in silos, they optimise for their own priorities, not for search visibility or long term performance.

Clear documentation, regular check ins, and shared visibility over changes are not optional in a migration. They are essential.

Why redirects are not a safety net

One of the most dangerous assumptions I hear is, we will just redirect it. Redirects are important, but they are not magic.

In my opinion, redirects should be treated as preservation tools, not excuses to change everything else. A redirect cannot fully preserve relevance if the content intent has changed. It cannot replace internal linking signals that no longer exist. It cannot compensate for missing metadata or diluted topical focus.

From experience, migrations that rely too heavily on redirects often suffer long term ranking erosion rather than immediate crashes. Traffic slowly declines as Google reassesses the site and finds fewer clear signals of authority.

Redirects work best when they support continuity, not when they are used to justify structural upheaval.

Content changes without SEO alignment

Content is another area where coordination failures cause real damage. During migrations, content is often rewritten, merged, or removed to improve clarity or brand tone. In principle, that makes sense. In practice, it is risky without SEO alignment.

I have seen pages that ranked for high intent queries merged into broader pages that no longer matched search intent. I have seen location pages removed because they looked repetitive, without understanding that they served distinct local searches.

From experience, content decisions during migrations must be informed by data, not just aesthetics or tone. Otherwise, the site loses relevance in ways that are difficult to recover.

Launch timing and rushed decisions

Timing is another coordination issue that causes migrations to fail. Launch dates are often driven by marketing calendars, funding milestones, or internal pressure, not readiness.

I think rushed launches are one of the most common causes of migration failure. Final checks are skipped, redirect testing is incomplete, analytics is not configured properly, and issues only surface once traffic starts dropping.

From experience, delaying a launch by a week to fix coordination issues is far cheaper than spending six months recovering lost rankings.

The long term impact of poor coordination

What makes poor coordination so dangerous is that the damage is not always immediate. Some sites appear stable for weeks or months before declines begin. By the time the problem is recognised, the connection to the migration is no longer obvious.

In my opinion, this is why migrations get such a bad reputation. It is not that migrations are inherently risky, it is that they expose organisational weaknesses.

When coordination is strong, migrations can improve performance. When coordination is weak, they magnify every small mistake.

How to approach migrations differently

From experience, the most successful migrations share a few traits. There is a single owner with authority. SEO is involved from the very beginning. Every URL is mapped intentionally. Content decisions are data led. Communication is continuous, not reactive.

In my opinion, migrations should be treated as strategic business projects, not technical chores. When everyone understands the stakes and works from the same plan, migrations stop being scary and start being opportunities.

If you are planning a migration and worrying about SEO, that concern is healthy. It means you understand that coordination matters.