Broken Redirects After Website Migration

Introduction

After a website migration, users and search engines still visit old URLs from bookmarks, emails, ads and backlinks. If redirects are missing, wrong or conflicting, those visits hit 404 errors, redirect loops or irrelevant destinations.

Broken redirects after migration are usually caused by incomplete redirect maps, duplicate rules across server/CMS/CDN layers, HTTP/HTTPS conflicts, www/non-www inconsistencies, or old paths that were never mapped to new URLs.

Quick answer

Broken redirects after migration explained

A migration redirect should send an old URL directly to the best matching new URL in one clear step. Broken redirects fail when that path is missing or fights with another rule.

Common failure patterns:

• 404 Not Found on important old URLs
• Redirect loop between HTTP, HTTPS, www and non-www
• Long redirect chains through multiple hops
• Old URLs all redirect to the homepage
• 302 used for a permanent migration
• Conflicting rules in .htaccess, Nginx, CDN and CMS plugin
• Old domain no longer redirects because DNS or SSL expired
• Case-sensitive or trailing-slash mismatches
• WordPress permalink structure changed without slug redirects
• Sitemap and internal links still point to old URLs

Why this matters

A redirect map tested before and after launch reduces traffic loss and makes it easier to find missing paths in logs and Search Console.

How to check redirects after migration

Test a representative set of old URLs from analytics, sitemaps, backlinks and server logs.

1. Old homepage — Confirm it reaches the new canonical homepage.
2. Top traffic pages — Test high-value old URLs individually.
3. Final URL — Confirm the redirect lands on the correct new page.
4. Final status — Confirm the destination returns 200 OK.
5. Redirect count — Prefer one hop from old URL to final URL.
6. HTTPS — Confirm insecure old URLs reach secure final pages.
7. www/non-www — Confirm canonical host behavior is consistent.
8. 404 and removed pages — Confirm intentional 404/410 or relevant replacements.

Common problems

How to fix broken migration redirects

1. Step 1: Export important old URLs

   Collect URLs from analytics, sitemap, Search Console, backlinks and server logs.

2. Step 2: Build a redirect map

   Match each old URL to the closest relevant new URL and note redirect type.

3. Step 3: Implement 301 redirects

   Add rules in one primary layer first — server, CDN or CMS — and avoid duplicates.

4. Step 4: Fix canonical host and HTTPS

   Choose www or non-www and ensure all old URLs reach the secure canonical version.

5. Step 5: Remove conflicting rules

   Review .htaccess, Nginx, CDN page rules and redirect plugins for loops or chains.

6. Step 6: Update internal links and sitemap

   Point menus, content, canonical tags and XML sitemap to final 200 URLs.

7. Step 7: Test old URLs

   Check status codes, final destinations and hop count for priority URLs.

8. Step 8: Monitor after launch

   Review 404 logs, crawl errors and traffic changes for missing redirects.

Redirect test examples

Test an old URL and follow redirects:

curl -IL http://example.com/old-page

Good result:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://example.com/new-page

HTTP/2 200 OK

Bad result (404):

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

Bad result (loop):

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://www.example.com/new-page

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://example.com/new-page

(repeats until browser error)

Redirect map example:

/old-page      → /new-page      301
/services/web   → /services/web-design 301
/blog/old-post → /blog/new-post 301
/retired-page  → 410 Gone

Frequently asked questions