An enterprise migration that doubled priority-page sessions
Backbase, the engagement banking platform used by banks worldwide
weekly organic sessions to priority pages within a month
priority pages changed URLs, and all 19 were indexed after launch
indexed pages before and after the migration
the short version
- The situation: an enterprise site of 1,300+ indexed pages in three languages moving from Craft CMS to Webflow, with more than half the priority URLs changing.
- The move: define the 19 pages that matter, agree the success metric before launch, verify redirects and indexation on a fixed cadence.
- The result: organic sessions to priority pages more than doubled within a month. No recovery phase was needed.
- The lesson: secure your revenue reporting before the migration, or you will be proving success with a proxy.
The situation
Backbase sells engagement banking software to banks. Their website is enterprise scale: more than 1,300 indexed pages in three languages, serving regional markets from the Americas to Asia, moving from Craft CMS to Webflow. Ten of the 19 pages that mattered most commercially were changing URLs in the process.
At that scale the migration fear is not abstract. Every changed URL is a bet that Google will follow the redirect, transfer the signals, and index the new page before the pipeline notices anything. Half the priority set was making that bet at once.
What I did
| The move | Why it mattered |
|---|---|
| Cut the problem down to 19 pages | You cannot babysit 1,300 URLs through a launch. You can babysit 19. Everything in the monitoring plan flowed from that list: sessions, positions for 64 non-branded focus keywords, branded traffic, indexed page count. |
| Agree the success metric before launch, including its limits | Lead reporting through Salesforce was not available, so I set organic sessions to priority pages as the KPI and put the caveat in writing: a proxy, not the conversion truth I normally insist on. Nobody had to argue about what "success" meant after the fact. |
| Treat redirects as claims to verify, not tasks to tick off | After the November launch I verified every changed URL redirected correctly, watched the temporary dips consolidate onto the new URLs, and tracked indexation until all 19 priority pages were confirmed indexed. |
| Separate migration effects from seasonal ones | Branded traffic dipped after launch. Before calling it a problem, I checked previous years: the same dip starts every late October. Without that check, a seasonal curve becomes a false migration alarm and a panicked, unnecessary fix. |
What happened
On a set of pages where more than half the URLs had just changed:
- 2× weekly organic sessions to the priority pages within a month
- 19 of 19 priority pages indexed after launch, including all ten that changed URLs
- 1,300 to 1,400 total indexed pages, growing through the migration instead of shrinking
There was no recovery phase, because nothing needed recovering. The one-month review moved straight to growth recommendations instead of triage.
What I'd tell you honestly
Sessions were a proxy, and I would not accept that again without a fight. Salesforce lead reporting was not connected for this migration, so I could prove the traffic doubled but not draw the line to pipeline. On my migrations since, securing the lead-reporting connection is a pre-launch gate, not a post-launch wish. If you are migrating, get that access sorted before launch day, because you cannot reconstruct it afterwards.
Performance regressed after launch. Mobile Core Web Vitals degraded from mid-November as templates and scripts settled in, and desktop followed in early December. The migration itself was clean; the new build needed a performance pass that the launch plan should have budgeted for.
A migration exposes strategy gaps without creating them. The 64 focus keywords came through stable but scattered, with no consolidation around a cluster the business owns. That was true before the migration too. Moving platforms carried the problem across faithfully, which is exactly what a good migration does, and exactly why it is not a strategy.
I’m Baba, an independent SEO consultant helping B2B companies, SaaS startups, and e-commerce brands turn SEO into a real growth lever. With 14+ years of experience, I work at the intersection of strategy, execution, and commercial impact, focusing on actions that drive revenue, not vanity metrics. I partner with growth-minded teams to solve complex SEO challenges, build internal buy-in, and create strategies that align SEO with business priorities. I also organize the Amsterdam SEO Salon, where practitioners and leaders exchange insights that shape the future of search.
Published 15 October 2026.
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