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Careers website migration checklist: how to replatform without losing traffic, rankings or applications
See other posts from by Melanie Murphy
CMO
A careers website move is a normal site move with seven extra risks. This is a 58-task checklist in six phases to keep your traffic, rankings and applications, with a free spreadsheet and printable PDF.
- Summary
- Why it is different
- Timeline
- Checklist
- Redirects and tests
- Measure the result
- Three questions
- Downloads
- FAQ
58tasks in six phases
21tasks specific to careers websites
7extra risks to manage
90days to watch and fix after launch
Executive summary
- A careers website migration is a normal site move with seven extra risks: job markup, closed jobs, the ATS feed, job URLs, the apply flow, job alerts and landing pages.
- This checklist has 58 tasks in six phases, and 21 of them are specific to careers websites. Everything else follows Google's own site move guidance.
- The rules that matter most: change as little as possible at once, map every old URL to one new URL, decide what closed jobs do before launch, and test the apply flow end to end.
- Take a baseline first. Without a before, you cannot tell whether the move worked.
- Download the spreadsheet, with a redirect map, a test appendix and a baseline sheet, or print the PDF. This guide is platform-neutral and names no platform.
Why a careers website migration is different
A careers website is not a brochure. Pages are created and removed every day, and each job page is meant to be found in Google for Jobs and on other search results. Candidates arrive from email alerts, QR codes and social posts that you cannot recall. The apply click usually leaves your site. Each of these can break quietly in a move.
Job markupJobPosting structured data can disappear or break in the template.
Closed jobsExpired jobs need a rule, or they linger or turn into errors.
ATS feedThe new site must read jobs from the ATS reliably.
Job URLsThousands of short-lived URLs, many printed or shared.
Apply flowSource and campaign data can be lost at the apply click.
Job alertsOld emails keep old links and must still work.
Landing pagesLocation and category pages often win the searches.
For context, our own study of 60 large employers found JobPosting markup on 82 percent of careers websites and validThrough on 18 percent, so many sites are starting from a thin base. See the study for method and limits.
The timeline
1. Baseline and decisions12+ weeks before
2. Plan8 weeks before
3. Build6 weeks before
4. Test3 weeks before
5. Launch dayThe switch
6. Watch and fix90 days after
Timeline of six phases of a careers website migration: baseline twelve weeks or more before launch, plan at eight weeks, build at six, test at three, launch day, then watch and fix for ninety days
Timings are a planning guide, not a rule. A small site can compress them. A large or multi-country site needs more time. Google suggests moving small and medium sites all at once and larger sites in sections. Google also advises changing only one major thing at a time, for example the domain, then the platform, then the design.
The checklist, phase by phase
A star marks the tasks that are specific to careers websites. The spreadsheet has the same tasks with owner, due date and status columns.
Tasks in each phase
All tasks, and the tasks that are specific to careers websites.
All tasksSpecific to careers websites
- Baseline and decisions9
2 - Plan12
6 - Build11
4 - Test before launch12
5 - Launch day7
2 - After launch7
2
58 tasks in total, 21 of them specific to careers websites.
1 Baseline and decisions
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| List every live job URL and every other careers URL that gets traffic or links (sitemaps, analytics, Search Console, server logs). | Google advises starting from sitemaps, logs, analytics and linked pages. Job URLs change daily, so take the list close to launch too. | SEO | 12+ weeks before | |
| Record baselines: organic sessions to the careers website and to job pages, job views, apply clicks, completed applications (from the ATS), and Search Console impressions and clicks. | You cannot tell whether the move worked without a before. | Analytics | 12+ weeks before | |
| ★ | Record how your jobs appear in Google today: sample job pages in the Rich Results Test, and the job listing search appearance in Search Console where it is available. | Google for Jobs depends on markup that migrations can break without anyone noticing. | SEO | 12+ weeks before |
| Run a full crawl of the current site and save it. | This is the reference for titles, headings, canonicals and status codes. | SEO | 12+ weeks before | |
| Record mobile speed and accessibility scores for the home page, a search page and a job page (three runs, keep the median). | Gives a fair before and after, and a budget for the new site. | Web | 12+ weeks before | |
| Decide what is changing: platform, design, domain, URLs, ATS. Change as few as possible at once. | Google advises changing one thing at a time. A new design on a new platform on a new domain is three risks stacked. | Project lead | 12+ weeks before | |
| Decide whether job and page URLs will change, and keep them if you can. | A URL that does not change needs no redirect. | Project lead | 12+ weeks before | |
| ★ | Pick a launch date away from graduate deadlines, hiring campaigns and recruitment events. | Google advises timing a move for a lower-traffic period. For a careers website, low traffic is not the same as a quiet calendar. | Talent acquisition | 10 weeks before |
| Name an owner for each area: SEO, talent acquisition, ATS admin, analytics, privacy, accessibility, comms, and one person who can call a rollback. | Launch-day problems fall between teams unless someone owns each. | Project lead | 10 weeks before |
2 Plan
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Map every old URL to one new URL, one to one. Do not send many old URLs to the home page. | Google warns that mass redirects to one irrelevant page can be treated as soft 404 errors. | SEO | 8 weeks before | |
| ★ | Write the rule for closed jobs: what a closed job URL returns, and what the page offers (similar jobs, search, job alert). | Jobs close every day. If this is left undecided, expired jobs go on appearing in search or turn into error pages. | SEO and talent acquisition | 8 weeks before |
| ★ | Confirm the ATS integration: job feed, job IDs, apply links, test environment and who at the ATS supplier is on call at launch. | The jobs are the product. A broken feed is a broken site. | ATS admin | 8 weeks before |
| ★ | Decide the job URL pattern and keep it stable, with a permanent job ID in it. | Stable IDs make redirects, tracking and reporting possible after the next change too. | SEO | 8 weeks before |
| ★ | Specify JobPosting structured data on every job page, in the initial HTML, with all required and recommended properties, including validThrough where you know it. | Google documents these properties. Our own study of 60 large employers found markup on 82 percent of sites and validThrough on 18 percent. | SEO | 8 weeks before |
| Write the tracking plan: job view, search, filter, apply click, apply complete, job alert sign-up, assistant use, with the same event names before and after. | Changing event names breaks the before and after comparison. | Analytics | 8 weeks before | |
| ★ | Map the apply flow: where Apply leads, whether it opens the ATS, and how source and campaign parameters survive the click and any redirects. | Apply attribution is easy to lose in a move. | ATS admin and analytics | 8 weeks before |
| ★ | List every place the old URLs live outside the site: job board and aggregator feeds, social profiles, email signatures, recruiter templates, QR codes on print, event material, referral links, job alert emails, paid campaigns. | Google suggests updating these as soon as the move starts. Print and QR codes cannot be updated, so they must redirect. | Comms | 8 weeks before |
| List every integration: job boards, talent community or CRM, job alert provider, consent tool, assistant, analytics, tag manager. | Each one holds old URLs or needs reconnecting. | Web | 8 weeks before | |
| Take a content inventory and decide for each piece: move, merge, rewrite or drop. Include stories, benefits pages, images with alt text and downloads. | Employer content is what makes the site worth finding. Do not lose it by accident. | Employer brand | 7 weeks before | |
| Check privacy and consent: cookie banner, notices on application and job alert forms, processors list. Take legal advice for your markets. | New tools and a new consent set-up often change what is collected. | Privacy lead | 7 weeks before | |
| Write accessibility and speed acceptance criteria into the brief and the contract. | Easier to ask before the build than to fix after launch. | Project lead | 7 weeks before |
3 Build
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build on a staging site that search engines cannot index, and write down every block you add so it is removed at launch. | Google lists leftover noindex and robots blocks as a common cause of a new site not being indexed. | Web | 6 weeks before | |
| Carry over, or improve, title, meta description and H1 patterns for each page type. | These are what searchers see. | SEO | 6 weeks before | |
| Give every page a self-referencing canonical, and update hreflang if you run several countries or languages. | Google asks for both on the new URLs. | SEO | 6 weeks before | |
| ★ | Generate the XML sitemap from the live job feed so it updates when jobs open and close. | A stale sitemap sends crawlers to closed jobs. | Web | 6 weeks before |
| Prepare the production robots.txt. | Know what it should say on launch day. | SEO | 6 weeks before | |
| Build the redirect rules as server-side permanent redirects (301 or 308), one hop, no chains. | Google recommends direct redirects and advises keeping chains short. | Web | 5 weeks before | |
| ★ | Build JobPosting markup into the job template and check it on staging. | Easier to fix on staging than live. | Web | 5 weeks before |
| Move images and downloads with their alt text and file names, and map their URLs too. | Google includes images and files in the move. | Web | 5 weeks before | |
| ★ | Make sure location, category and search landing pages keep or improve their URLs, titles and copy. | These pages often win the searches people type. | SEO | 5 weeks before |
| Update internal links to the new URLs. | Google asks for internal links to be updated, not left to redirects. | Web | 4 weeks before | |
| ★ | Connect the apply flow to the ATS test environment. | Test the real route, not a mock. | ATS admin | 4 weeks before |
4 Test before launch
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crawl staging and compare with the baseline crawl: status codes, titles, H1s, canonicals, word counts. | Finds pages that were dropped or changed by accident. | SEO | 3 weeks before | |
| Test the whole redirect map: every old URL gives one 301 to a live 200 page that matches it. | Google says it frequently sees redirects that point to the wrong URLs. | SEO | 3 weeks before | |
| ★ | Test at least 20 job pages across job types and countries for valid JobPosting markup in the initial HTML. | Jobs vary in fields and templates, and gaps hide in the variety. | SEO | 3 weeks before |
| ★ | Test the job lifecycle in a test environment: create, edit and close a job, and watch the page, sitemap and markup respond. | Closing is where careers websites break. | Web and ATS admin | 3 weeks before |
| ★ | Test the apply flow from start to finish on mobile and desktop, with source parameters, in the ATS test mode. | Apply is the point of the site. | ATS admin | 2 weeks before |
| Check every analytics event fires with the planned name, and that consent mode behaves as designed. | Gaps found now cost nothing. | Analytics | 2 weeks before | |
| Test mobile speed against your budget, three runs. | Compare with the baseline, and fix before launch. | Web | 2 weeks before | |
| Test accessibility: automated checks, keyboard only, 200 percent zoom, and a screen reader on search, a job page and apply. | Automated tools alone find only part of the issues. | Accessibility lead | 2 weeks before | |
| ★ | Test job alert sign-up, confirmation and unsubscribe, including links in emails already sent. | Old alert emails keep old links. | Talent acquisition | 2 weeks before |
| ★ | Test QR codes, referral links and campaign URLs against the redirect map. | Print cannot be recalled. | Comms | 2 weeks before |
| Verify old and new sites in Search Console, all variants, and check the staging site is not indexed. | Google advises verifying all variants of both sites. | SEO | 1 week before | |
| Write the rollback plan: the trigger, who decides, how long it takes, and what is communicated. | A rollback you have not planned is not an option. | Project lead | 1 week before |
5 Launch day
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★ | Agree a short change freeze for jobs and content around the switch. | Fewer moving parts at the riskiest hour. | Talent acquisition | Launch day |
| Deploy and switch. Remove staging noindex and robots blocks. | Google lists leftover noindex and robots blocks among the common mistakes. | Web | Launch day | |
| Check the redirects live: sample at least 50 old URLs across all types. | Confirms the map on production. | SEO | Launch day | |
| Submit the new sitemap in Search Console. Submit Change of Address if the domain or subdomain changed. | Google describes both steps. | SEO | Launch day | |
| ★ | Check the live job feed and a live apply route using an agreed test. | Confirms the real thing works. | ATS admin | Launch day |
| Check canonicals and robots meta tags on live pages. | Google lists these as a check once redirects are active. | SEO | Launch day | |
| Watch server logs, errors and analytics in real time for the first hours. | Early errors are the cheapest to fix. | Web and analytics | Launch day |
6 After launch
| Careers | Task | Why it matters | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily for the first week: not-found errors, soft 404s, crawl errors, sitemap indexing and feed freshness. | Problems show up in the first days. | SEO | Days 1 to 7 | |
| ★ | Update external links: job boards and aggregator feeds, social profiles, email templates, ads. | Google advises updating as many as possible quickly. | Comms | Days 1 to 14 |
| Compare organic sessions, job views, apply clicks and completed applications with the baseline. | Expect some movement. Google says rankings can fluctuate during a move. | Analytics | Weeks 2 to 4 | |
| ★ | Check Google job search appearances and structured data reports in Search Console. | Shows whether jobs are being found again. | SEO | Weeks 2 to 4 |
| Keep redirects in place for at least a year. | Google generally advises at least one year. | Web | Months 1 to 12 | |
| Review at 30, 60 and 90 days, and write down what you would change. | Next time is easier. | Project lead | Days 30, 60, 90 | |
| Re-run speed and accessibility tests and fix gaps against the acceptance criteria. | Closes the loop with the brief. | Web | Day 30 |
Appendix: what we redirect and what we test
| URL type | Redirect rule | Test |
|---|---|---|
| Careers home page | One to one | Test: 301 to the new home in one hop |
| Job search and filter pages | Map each indexed URL pattern | Test: filters and parameters still work and are not duplicated |
| Location and category landing pages | One to one, keep the URL if possible | Test: titles, copy and canonicals carried over |
| Live job pages | Keep the URL or map by job ID | Test: sample 20 or more, markup valid, apply works |
| Closed job pages | Follow your closed job rule | Test: returns the rule you chose, not a soft 404 |
| Employer content (stories, benefits, teams) | One to one | Test: content, alt text and links carried over |
| Images, PDFs and downloads | Map the file URL | Test: file loads from the new path |
| Apply links and parameters | Preserve source and campaign parameters | Test: source appears in the ATS and in analytics |
| Job alert and unsubscribe links | Keep working for old emails | Test: old email links open the right page |
| Sitemap and robots.txt | Replace with new, live versions | Test: new sitemap lists only live pages; robots has no leftover blocks |
| Campaign, QR and referral URLs | Redirect, then replace over time | Test: each printed code and shared link lands on the matching page |
How to measure the result
- Compare each baseline measure at 30, 60 and 90 days: organic sessions, job views, apply clicks, completed applications, indexed job pages, speed and accessibility.
- Expect some movement in the first weeks. Google says visibility can fluctuate during a move.
- Look at job pages and landing pages separately from the rest of the site.
- Keep a record of what changed and what you would do differently.
Before you start: the three questions
- What is changing? List platform, design, domain, URLs, ATS and tracking, and cut the list if you can.
- Which URLs matter? Start from the pages with traffic and links, then every live job.
- Who can call a rollback, and what makes them call it?
Free downloads
Download the spreadsheet, which has the checklist, a redirect map, the test appendix and a baseline sheet. A printable PDF is also available.
Frequently asked questions
What is a careers website migration?
Moving your careers website to a new platform, design, domain or URL structure. The aim is to do it without losing traffic, search rankings or applications.
Will a migration hurt my rankings?
Some movement is normal. Google says rankings can fluctuate while it recrawls and reindexes a moved site. Careful URL mapping, redirects and testing keep it small and short.
What is different about migrating a careers website?
Careers websites have short-lived job URLs, Google for Jobs structured data, a feed from the ATS, an apply flow that leaves the site, and job alert emails that carry old links. A generic site migration checklist does not cover these.
Should I change my job URLs?
Keep them if you can, because a URL that does not change needs no redirect. If they must change, map each old URL to one new one and use permanent server-side redirects.
What happens to closed jobs when we migrate?
Decide the rule before launch: what the closed job URL returns and what the page offers. Google says expired jobs need a past validThrough date or removal of the markup or page.
How long should redirects stay in place?
Google generally advises at least one year, and consider keeping them longer for users, for example old links in emails and print.
Should I move everything at once?
Google recommends moving small and medium sites all at once, and says large sites can move in sections. Change only one major thing at a time.
How do I check the migration worked?
Compare your baseline with the same measures at 30, 60 and 90 days: organic sessions, job views, apply clicks, completed applications, indexed job pages and speed.
Related reading
Careers website vs ATS career page: what is the difference and when do you outgrow the ATS page?Careers Website SEO Study 2026: how 60 large employers set up Google for JobsFree Careers Website Audit: a 40-point scorecard and checklist for employer brand and TA leadersCareers Website Accessibility Audit Guide 2026: automated results for 60 employers and a 10-point manual test
Sources
- Google Search Central, Site moves and migrations: developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes
- Google Search Central, Job posting structured data: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/job-posting
- Happydance, Careers website SEO and Google for Jobs study 2026 (60 large employers): https://www.happydance.love/insights/posts/careers-website-seo-google-for-jobs-study-2026/
Limitations
- The checklist follows Google's published guidance. Other search engines and your own set-up may differ.
- Timings are suggestions, not measured benchmarks. We state no market statistics. The only figures are from our own study of 60 large employers.
- This is not legal advice. Take advice on privacy, consent and accessibility duties in your markets.
- The guide is platform-neutral and does not assess any platform.
Download the careers website migration checklist
The free spreadsheet has every task, owner, due date and status, plus a redirect map, a test appendix and a baseline sheet.
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