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Site Migration Monitoring

Having a successful site migration is only the first step, ensuring that the migration is troublefree for years to come is what this guide is for.

So you’ve just migrated to a brand new domain name following one of the many guides online (like this excellent one by Aleyda) and it’s all gone great (or maybe you are still waiting to see the results).

Domain Name Expiration​

The domain expiration of the old domain We shouldn’t really have to explain this one.

The domain expiration of any additional TLDs around the old domain Any Geo Region domain names you may have such as .co.uk, .us, .de or any that you’ve bought for brand protection such as .net, .org or even .limo.

Any related domain names to the old domain Any old marketing campaigns that you bought a domain name for, any trademark protection domains (such as slogans, domains with dashes in).

SSL Expiration​

The SSL expiration of the old domain This is the #1 thing that people forget to renew post site migration, the redirect might work but everyone who visits the old domain gets a lovely SSL expired ‘red screen of death’.

The SSL expiration of any subdomains on the old domain Subdomains can be hosted on different servers and use completely different web technology so most of the time have different certificates, if something goes wrong, a subdomain is more easily missed so even if it’s all using the same stuff, best be safe and monitor it.

Redirects​

The old root domain to the new domain This one is a no brainer really, make sure that redirect always works and is always passing value.

A few random URLs on the old domain to the new domain 99% of redirects we see are on a wildcard level so that all URLs are affected, to ensure this works correctly, we recommend putting some other URLs in this on all levels of the folder structure.

Each subdomain on the old domain to the new destination As mentioned in the SSL, different subdomains means different ways of redirects to break and error.

Any additional TLDs of the old domain to the new domain In general you may just want to monitor these keep redirecting to the old domain but if you want to avoid two hops, you can modify and monitor them so they redirect to the new domain.

Any domains that redirected into the old domain As above, depending on the value of the domain name and your time, it may be worth just monitoring that they redirect to a redirect (but if they have any value or traffic, it’s worth the time to modify that redirect).

DNS​

The Nameservers of the old domain After a site migrates, we don’t usually expect the nameservers of the redirected domain to change, if it does, it’s probably worth knowing about.

The MX Records of the old domain Although the brand name can change, many companies still use email addresses from previous names (for a short while at least) keeping an eye on the MX records can ensure nobody accidentally removes email access for a large number of people.

And that’s it, this small guide focuses on protecting the old brand from trouble and ensuring that the value is always passed. Of course we also believe you should be monitoring the new brand more completely with Little Warden.