Overview

Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) recently rebranded to VEG ER for Pets. Alongside the rebrand, the company undertook a full domain migration, from veterinaryemergencygroup.com to veg.com.

I was brought in to lead SEO strategy and execution for the rebrand and migration, working cross-functionally with brand, design, engineering, content, PR, and senior leadership.

We started planning for the migration in early summer of 2025. The migration launched on October 7, 2025. By January 1, 2026 organic keywords and traffic had fully recovered to pre-migration baselines.

The Challenge

Rebrands are inherently risky from an SEO perspective.

They require asking search engines (and users) o transfer years of brand equity, authority, and trust to a new domain overnight. When combined with a domain migration, the risk multiplies.

In this case, the stakes were high:

• A well-established brand with years of organic authority
• A new, shorter domain with very different brand signals
• Dozens of internal stakeholders across teams
• Executive visibility and concern around short-term traffic loss

We knew going in that:

• Rankings would drop
• Impressions would decline
• Organic traffic would likely fall 20–30% in the short term

The real challenge wasn’t avoiding a dip entirely, it was recovering cleanly, predictably, and on schedule, without panic or reactive decision-making.

My Role

I led the migration as a fractional SEO leader, responsible for:

• Building the SEO migration strategy
• Defining the technical SEO requirements
• Aligning cross-functional teams
• Setting expectations with senior leadership
• Managing risk before, during, and after launch
• Owning post-migration monitoring and communication

This wasn’t about producing a 301 redirect sheet. It was about leading a business-critical transition.

Strategy & Approach

1. Deep Pre-Migration Planning

Months before launch, we:

• Audited the legacy domain in detail
• Created meticulous 301 redirect mapping
• Identified high-risk URLs, templates, and traffic drivers
• Documented technical dependencies and failure points
• Developed workflows to update internal links at scale
• Identified required brand name and backlink updates from external sites
• Built SEO forecasts to model expected short-term losses and recovery timelines

This allowed leadership to understand what would happen, why it would happen, and what success would look like ahead of time.

2. Cross-Functional Alignment

SEO migrations fail when teams work in silos.

I worked closely with:

• Brand (to ensure SEO implications of naming and messaging were understood)
• Engineering (to validate implementation details)
• Content (to preserve intent and internal linking)
• PR (to coordinate external signals post-launch)

Everyone knew their role, timelines were clear, and decisions were documented.

3. Clear Expectations & Executive Trust

We explicitly set the expectation that:

• Traffic would drop
• Rankings would fluctuate
• Recovery would take up to 90 days – I even mapped what to expect within that 90 day window in 2 week increments

By defining success as recovery within a known window, we removed emotion from short-term volatility.

This meant no panic in week one—even when traffic dipped exactly as expected.

Post-Migration Execution & Monitoring

High-Frequency Communication

Post-launch, I shifted into active monitoring and leadership communication mode:

• Daily check-ins during the first week
• Weekly reporting every Thursday for the next 90 days

No one had to ask how the migration was going—they already knew.

Tooling & Reporting

I used SEO Gets to combine Google Search Console data across both domains, allowing us to:

• Track impressions and clicks holistically
• Monitor recovery trends accurately
• Avoid fragmented or misleading reporting
• dig down to page and keyword level insights

Each report included:

• A written Key Insights & Takeaways summary for leadership
• A Loom walkthrough explaining what mattered and why

This kept all stakeholders aligned and confident throughout the recovery period.

Results

• Migration launched: October 7
• Expected short-term decline observed (as forecasted)
• Gradual, then accelerating recovery through Q4
• Full recovery of daily clicks by early January

By the first week of January, organic performance had returned to baseline—right on schedule.

Just as importantly:

• There was no internal panic
• No reactive decision-making
• No erosion of trust in SEO

Why This Worked

This migration succeeded because it was treated as a leadership problem, not just a technical checklist.

Key factors:

• Early and realistic expectation-setting
• Rigorous planning and documentation
• Tight cross-functional coordination
• Transparent, proactive communication
• Clear ownership of outcomes

Migrations aren’t won on launch day. They’re won in the months before and the weeks after.

Final Takeaway

This wasn’t a “me” win. It was a team win.

Having clients who collaborate, trust the process, and value clear communication makes all the difference, especially during high-risk transitions like rebrands and domain migrations.

‍

If you’re planning a rebrand, domain migration, or both at the same time, I help teams navigate these moments with clarity, confidence, and predictability—so SEO supports the business instead of becoming a source of stress.

‍