Site Migration Case Study: Drupal Version Upgrade

Site Migration SEO for Furniture Store: Drupal 7 to Drupal 9

A leading UK furniture company partnered with our agency for its website migration. They wanted to upgrade their content management system (CMS) from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9.

For years, the business had relied on Drupal 7 as the CMS for its online store.

With Drupal 7 reaching its end-of-life by January 2025, the client needed to upgrade to a newer version as soon as possible. This was crucial for the site’s continued security and functionality.

This site migration was part of a bigger plan to grow the brand’s presence online. They wanted to improve site performance, security and the overall website experience.

A big site migration project like this (37,000 pages) presents its fair share of challenges. And a poorly planned migration can ruin years of positive SEO work, wiping out online revenue and organic rankings instantly.

As their SEO agency, our goal was to guide them through a smooth site migration while keeping SEO performance stable.

Site Migration SEO: The Challenge

Using an outdated CMS version isn’t great for a fast-growing eCommerce brand.

Drupal 7 had reached its end-of-life. It means the Drupal Support Team would stop giving advice and patches for that version. That, in turn, would increase the website’s performance and security risks.

Upgrading to Drupal 9 was the obvious solution.

But, this project wasn’t a simple version upgrade. It was a full rebuild that touched every part of the site, from backend code to frontend design.

The goal was to support the website upgrade while keeping its SEO authority.

1. Code rewriting and module compatibility

The shift from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 required some code and module adjustments. These became major concerns in the migration.

Many of the modules from the older version were no longer compatible. The developer team had to review, rewrite, or replace each custom function and code.

Even small errors in the new code could break site functions or lead to missing or erroneous data. For an eCommerce site, such issues can affect the site’s visibility and conversions.

2. Data Migration Complexities

The site had several years of product data, media assets and order information. The project required the team to transfer all data, product descriptions, and order histories perfectly.

Even a minor error in this process could mean lost content or corrupted records.

3. Theme and Frontend Updates

The new website design had to provide a faster, easier browsing experience. Key category and product pages went through major upgrades.

It was crucial to validate every change in layout, heading structure, and navigation flow. This was to ensure that the new design didn’t affect crawlability or keyword relevance.

4. Minimising Post-Launch Disruption

Even with the best preparation, no site migration is entirely risk-free.

When a new site goes live, broken 301 redirects, display issues, product filters, or slow page performance can significantly impact conversions and rankings.

To avoid this, we planned comprehensive post-launch site monitoring.

This was to detect and resolve any emerging technical SEO and UX issues as soon as possible.

5. SEO Performance

At the heart of all these challenges was one key priority: preserving the site’s SEO performance.

Every change in structure, content, or code had potential implications for search visibility. Our SEO site migration strategy focused on a few critical areas:

1. URL Parity: Accurate URL redirects (301 redirects) and canonical tags to keep link equity.
2. Meta Data Consistency: Complete metadata transfer to preserve page relevance. This included titles, descriptions, headers, and structured data markup.
3. Internal Linking Stability: Preserve internal linking to maintain crawl flow and hierarchy.

Site Migration SEO: plan execution

Our process involved exhaustive SEO audits and an ongoing collaboration with the developer.

We divided the process into three main phases:

1. Pre-migration SEO Audit

It all started with a comprehensive pre-migration SEO audit of the newly developed Staging site.

This was to identify and document key SEO gaps and differences from the existing old site.

Our audit covered four main parts:

Technical Checks:

Check crawlability (robots.txt, meta directives)
Review indexation (XML sitemap)
Examine site structure
Faceted Navigation

On-page checks:

Reviewing meta titles, descriptions, headers, and content.

URL & Internal Linking Checks:

Compare staging and live URLs
Map navigation paths (breadcrumbs)
Ensure internal linking is consistent

Analytics checks:

Ensuring data accuracy, continuity, and attribution in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
We used paid SEO tools such as Screaming Frog.
We also used Google’s free platforms, like Search Console and GA4.

This part helped us see how the site performed before and after migration.

2. Staging Environment Tests

Before the new site was launched, we conducted thorough staging site audits.

Here, our SEO team worked closely with the developers to validate every element of the new site.

We tested page templates and navigation paths. We also checked user interface elements. This way, we made sure the upgraded Drupal 9 version was both fast and easy to use.

This stage let us fix SEO and page performance gaps before launch. This reduced the risk of disruptions after migration.

3. Post-migration SEO Audit

Once the new site went live, maintaining SEO stability became the top priority.

We divided our post-migration SEO audit into two stages to catch and correct any issues quickly.

A. Post-Launch SEO Audit

The immediate focus after going live was to detect any critical technical or SEO issues.

Our team carried out several checks:

Spot checks of search engine crawls to confirm discoverability.
Validation of full URL redirects to ensure historical URLs pointed correctly.
Reviews of Google Search Console to find coverage or indexing errors.
Full-site crawls to assess metadata, schema markup and internal linking.

We did these checks several times in the days right after launch. This ensured the new Drupal 9 site was crawlable, indexable, and search-engine-friendly.

B. Post-Launch Monitoring

Following the initial launch SEO audit, we entered a monitoring phase to ensure long-term stability.

Using Google Search Console, GA4, and log file analysis, we closely tracked crawl patterns, user behaviour, and performance metrics.

This proactive approach allowed us to quickly identify and address any emerging issues before they could affect organic search visibility.

SEO Site Migration: The Results

The site kept steady search visibility right after launch, despite it being such a large site migration. There was no major drop in rankings or traffic.

The graph above shows the site’s visibility index trend. After the upgrades, the site’s organic visibility started to rise steadily. This means the new version and the maintained SEO signals were working well together.

As mentioned earlier, the site migration was designed for long-term business growth. Better site performance and user experience, along with ongoing SEO optimisations, boosted the site’s search results.

As a result, the website’s search visibility continued to grow over time (as can be seen in the graph above).

This Drupal 9 SEO site migration demonstrates that, with careful planning and collaboration, even large and challenging site migrations can deliver huge gains. Both from a technical and commerical perspective, while keeping search performance intact.

Looking for an SEO Site Migration Specialist? Look no further.

If you’re planning a website migration and want to ensure your site’s SEO performance remains strong through major changes, get in touch.

We can help your business website migrate confidently, preserve rankings, and unlock new growth opportunities.

Site Migration Case Study: Drupal Version Upgrade

Site Migration SEO for Furniture Store: Drupal 7 to Drupal 9

Site Migration SEO: The Challenge