Migration Risk Assessment · Page 1: the Risk Map
Moving the website to a new platform: what the move puts at risk
1Money at risk
What could this move cost us in the first year?
Money lost is lost leads times what one lead is worth to the business: first-year contract value (here €12,000) times the share of leads that become customers (here 25%). Both numbers come from the client.
What happens after launch decides the year. The value of the leads Google brings in each month, for the same move followed by three different ways of working. The gap to "no migration" is the money lost.
- If you did not migrate: €72k a month
- With an SEO plan after launch: €30k lost over the year
- With ad-hoc fixes: €141k lost over the year
- With no work after launch: €198k lost over the year
Show the numbers by month
| Month after launch | No migration | SEO plan | Ad-hoc fixes | No work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €72k | €66k | €66k | €66k |
| 2 | €72k | €66k | €65k | €64k |
| 3 | €72k | €67k | €64k | €62k |
| 4 | €72k | €68k | €63k | €60k |
| 5 | €72k | €69k | €62k | €58k |
| 6 | €72k | €70k | €61k | €56k |
| 7 | €72k | €70.5k | €60k | €55k |
| 8 | €72k | €71k | €59k | €53k |
| 9 | €72k | €71.5k | €58k | €51k |
| 10 | €72k | €71.5k | €57k | €49k |
| 11 | €72k | €71.5k | €55k | €47k |
| 12 | €72k | €72k | €53k | €45k |
| Lost over the year | €0 | €30k | €141k | €198k |
Second yardstick: buying the expected lost clicks back through Google Ads would cost about €48,000.
2The pages that carry it
Which part of the site is this about?
| Page on the old site | Clicks a month now | Leads a year now | Expected leads lost | Ads worth of lost clicks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homepage | 4,200 | 96 | 6 | €14,000 |
| Pricing page | 1,150 | 64 | 5 | €11,500 |
| Demo request page | 620 | 88 | 4 | €9,800 |
| Integrations overview | 1,900 | 6 | 0.5 | €6,200 |
| How-to article, most read | 2,400 | 3 | 0 | €4,100 |
| Comparison with a competitor | 380 | 21 | 2 | €2,400 |
A third of the expected lead loss sits on the homepage, and the pricing and demo pages carry half. The comparison page is small in traffic and one of the best at turning visits into leads, yet the new site map drops it (section 9).
3Top risks, and what fixing them costs
What is most likely to go wrong, and is the fix worth the developer time?
| Risk | Type | Developer days | Cost at €1,000 a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Risk 1. 212 old addresses redirect to pages that do not exist yet on the new site | Blocks launch | part of the build | n/a |
| Risk 2. The blog moves from dated addresses to /blog/: 140 posts have no redirect rule yet | Blocks launch | 1 | €1,000 |
| Risk 3. 85 product and feature pages are sent to the homepage. Google tends to treat these as removed, and their rankings go with them | Blocks launch | 1 | €1,000 |
| Risk 4. 46 redirects go through more than one hop | Fix first | 0.5 | €500 |
| Risk 5. 60 pages lose their Google title and description in the new templates | Fix first | 0.5 | €500 |
| Risk 6. Analytics and the demo form tracking are not set up on the new site yet | Fix first | 0.5 | €500 |
| Risk 7. 20 of the 30 most valuable pages not yet signed off by a person | Sign-off | 0 | my time |
Developer days come from your developers, priced at a standard €1,000 a day, a typical Dutch agency rate. Against €54,000 expected loss, the fixes above cost about €3,500.
4Ready to launch?
Can we go live on the date?
Verdict: fix these first
9 of 18 pre-launch checks pass, 6 fail and 3 need someone to confirm them in writing. Launch once the three blocking risks and the three fix-first items in section 3 are done; the sign-offs can run in parallel.
Possible verdicts: Go Fix these first (this one) Rethink the plan
5What to ask of the build agency
What do we tell the people building the site?
- Every new page is live and answers before any redirect is switched on.
- Each old address goes straight to its final page, in one hop.
- Product and feature pages go to their matching new page, never to the homepage.
- The rule for the new blog addresses is decided, and its redirects are written, before launch.
- Analytics and the demo form tracking are live and tested on the new site before the switch.
The evidence behind the Risk Map
6The searches to defend
Which Google searches bring the leads, and what happens to each one?
| Search | Clicks a month | Position now | Page on the old site | In the plan today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand name, all spellings | 2,900 | 1.0 | Homepage | Mapped, one hop |
| how to plan service technicians | 610 | 4.1 | How-to article, most read | No redirect yet (risk 2) |
| field service planning software | 310 | 3.2 | Homepage | Mapped, title dropped (risk 5) |
| field service kpi | 240 | 6.3 | Blog article | No redirect yet (risk 2) |
| digitale werkbon app | 220 | 2.8 | Feature page: digital work orders | Sent to homepage (risk 3) |
| planning software exact online koppeling | 180 | 1.9 | Integrations overview | Mapped, one hop |
| field service software pricing | 140 | 2.1 | Pricing page | Mapped, two hops (risk 4) |
| planning software installers | 120 | 3.4 | Industry page: installers | Merged, redirect mapped |
| [competitor] alternative | 95 | 1.6 | Comparison with a competitor | No page planned (section 9) |
| planning software demo | 60 | 4.5 | Demo request page | Mapped, one hop |
From Search Console, last 12 months. These 10 searches, out of 3,400 that bring clicks, carry a third of all organic clicks. Four of them have no safe route to the new site yet. The full list comes as a spreadsheet with the assessment.
7Every page, ranked by the leads it brings
Which pages can we let go, and which ones can we not?
| Group | Pages | Clicks a month | Leads a year | What happens to them |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 38 | 11,900 | 281 | Move one to one. Each redirect checked by hand, and again on launch day. |
| Keep | 214 | 3,100 | 5 | Move one to one. |
| Merge | 96 | 650 | 1 | Into a parent page, each with its named target and the reason. |
| Retire | 292 | 120 | 0 | Redirect to the closest parent. No page is left without a destination. |
38 of 640 pages bring 98% of the organic leads and three quarters of the clicks. Those 38 are named one by one in the spreadsheet, each with its new address and who signs it off.
8The links to keep
Which pages do other websites link to, and do those links survive the move?
| Page on the old site | Websites linking to it | In the plan today |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | 212 | Mapped |
| Blog article: field service KPIs | 41 | No redirect yet (risk 2) |
| Integrations overview | 18 | Mapped |
| Feature page: digital work orders | 14 | Sent to homepage (risk 3) |
| Industry report 2024 (PDF) | 11 | Not in the redirect file |
A link that lands on a page with no redirect stops counting for the new site. The PDF report is linked from 11 websites and is missing from the redirect file altogether.
9The new site map: go or no-go
Which choices in the new site structure put leads at risk?
| Decision in the plan | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Twelve feature pages merged into one "Features" page | No-go | They bring 1,400 clicks a month from specific searches such as "digitale werkbon app" (section 6). One page cannot rank for all twelve. Keep them as separate pages. |
| Comparison pages dropped | No-go | The comparison page brings 21 leads a year from 380 clicks a month, the best rate on the site after the demo page. Keep it and its address. |
| Blog moved under /blog/ | Go | With one redirect rule that sends each dated address to its new one (risk 2), written before launch. |
| Industry pages cut from six to three | Go | The three that go bring 40 clicks a month together. Each merges into its closest remaining industry page. |