How to find old URLs after a website migration (when the old site is gone)

1. Google Search Console: start here

If the site had a verified Search Console property, start there: it shows which old URLs actually earned search clicks.

• Performance > Search results > Pages tab. Set the date range to Last 16 months, the longest range Search Console offers, so the old URLs from before launch are included. Sort by clicks and Export. The interface export is capped at 1,000 rows; Google says the API and the Looker Studio connector return up to 50,000 rows per day per site per search type.
• Indexing > Pages > Not found (404). Google describes these as URLs it found that return 404, possibly because "the page existed before and was deleted". Limits: it shows only URLs that returned 404 in the past month, and the example list is capped at 1,000 rows.
• Filter that report by the old sitemap, if it was ever submitted, to see the URLs Google knows from it.
• Links report > External links > Top linked pages. Pages other sites link to. Google says it includes links found over time, so it can still list pages that no longer exist. Tables stop at 1,000 rows; the main Export gives up to 100,000 rows of links.
• URL Inspection for individual URLs you're unsure about. It shows Google's record for a URL in your property: a referring page, any submitted sitemap that lists it, and the last crawl. There's a daily limit, so use it to check, not to discover.

If the domain changed too, use the old domain's property. Google recommends verifying both old and new sites.

2. The Wayback Machine

In the browser: the Internet Archive's help page says the best way to see all the files it has archived for a site is:

https://web.archive.org/*/www.example.com/*

As a list you can download: the Wayback CDX Server API returns the same index as text or JSON. This query returns one row per unique archived URL under a domain:

https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=example.com/*&output=json&fl=original&collapse=urlkey

What each part does, per the official CDX server documentation:

• url=example.com/*: a trailing /* means a prefix match (everything under that address).
• output=json: returns a JSON array; the first row is the field names.
• fl=original: return only the original URL field.
• collapse=urlkey: keep only the first capture of each URL, so each address appears once.

Useful additions from the same docs: &filter=statuscode:200 (only captures that returned 200), &filter=mimetype:text/html (pages only), &from=2023&to=2025 (date range) and &limit=. For large sites the docs recommend the pagination API. For www sites, also query www.example.com/*.

Expect noise: in our test the results mixed http/https, www/non-www, :80 ports, tracking parameters and malformed URLs. Clean them up in step 7. And the archive doesn't have every site; its help page says sites can be missing if crawlers didn't know about them, or if they were blocked by robots.txt, password protected or excluded by the owner.

3. The old sitemap.xml

Google's site-move guide names sitemaps as a first place to find your important URLs. Try:

1. The old address itself (/sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml), in case the old host or a staging copy is still up.
2. The Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/*/www.example.com/sitemap.xml lists the captures of that file (the help page documents this /*/ form). Open one and copy the <loc> entries.
3. The sitemap filter in Search Console's Page indexing report (step 1).

4. Analytics landing pages (GA4)

In GA4, go to Reports > Engagement > Landing page. The Landing page dimension is the path and query string of the first pageview in a session, so set dates before the migration to see which old paths people arrived on. Add the secondary dimension Session source / medium to separate organic search from email or ads. If the report is missing, an Editor or Administrator can add it back. Paths are relative (/old-page), so add the domain before testing.

5. Server and CDN logs

Old server access logs list every URL that was requested, including PDFs and images. Google suggests checking logs for URLs visited at least once recently, over a period that covers seasonal traffic.

If you have server or CDN logs for the new site, filter for 404 responses: that's a live list of old URLs people and crawlers still request. Google recommends watching access and error logs after a move.

6. Bing Webmaster Tools, backlinks and the old CMS

• Bing Webmaster Tools, Site Explorer. It has a filter for "URLs with crawling issues (deadlinks)", which covers HTTP 404 to 410, and one for URLs that redirect. Bing notes that data collection starts when you add the site, so this only helps if the site was added before the move.
• Bing Backlinks report. Shows pages on other sites linking to yours, with the target URL on your site, exportable with Download all. Bing says it is a representative set, not a complete list.
• Other backlink sources you already have. Old URLs with external links are worth redirecting even with little traffic.
• The old CMS. If the old site was on WordPress and you still have admin access or a backup, Tools > Export creates an XML (WXR) file of posts, pages and custom post types. Google's site-move guide also points to the CMS for a list of URLs.

7. Merge, dedupe and prioritise

Put every URL into one sheet with a column for its source. Then:

1. Normalise. Decide one form per URL: lower-case host, one protocol, one www choice, no :80 or :443, no tracking parameters such as utm_, a consistent trailing slash. Keep query strings only where they selected different content on the old site.
2. Dedupe on the normalised form.
3. Drop junk: admin and login paths, search results, feeds and malformed URLs. Keep images and PDFs that had links or traffic; Google's site-move guide says to move those too.

Prioritise:

• First: old URLs with Search Console clicks, and old URLs with external links.
• Next: URLs in the old sitemap, analytics landing pages with real sessions, and URLs still showing up as 404s in logs or the Not found report.
• Last: URLs seen only in the Wayback Machine.

8. Turn the list into a redirect map

For each old URL, pick the closest new page and record it in a redirect map. Google's guidance:

• Use permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308).
• Redirect straight to the final page, not through a chain.
• Don't send many old URLs to one irrelevant page such as the home page: Google says that may be treated as a soft 404. Redirecting several old pages to one page that consolidates their content is fine.
• If content was removed with no replacement, let it return 404 or 410.

Then add the redirects on the new platform: see Webflow migration redirects or Framer migration redirects. The other write-ups are listed on Guides.

9. Verify after launch

• Test every old URL on the live site. Each should return one 301 or 308 to its new page, which returns 200. Use the script in Traffic dropped after a migration?; Google suggests command-line tools or scripts for testing many redirects.
• Use URL Inspection on a few important old URLs. The indexed result shows whether Google has seen the redirect. The live test follows redirects without saying so, so check the status code yourself.
• Watch Not found (404). When you've fixed a batch, click Validate fix. Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks.
• Recheck logs and Bing's deadlinks filter a week or two later, and fix new 404s as they appear.
• Keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year, as Google recommends.

None of this guarantees rankings or traffic. It makes sure the old addresses lead somewhere useful, which is what you can control.

Want us to find them for you?

The free Lost-URL Scan checks a domain's old public addresses, from the Wayback Machine and old sitemaps, against the live site.

Run the free Lost-URL Scan

Migration Repair works on sites that have already moved to Webflow or Framer. We rebuild the list of old URLs from the sources above, map each one to its new page, put the redirects in (or hand you the file), and check them live, then again 7 days later.

• Free first: email us the old and new site addresses and we'll send a redirect map for your top 10 traffic pages within 48 hours.
• Then: the full Recovery at $500 per site (₹40,000 + GST in India), agreed before we start. We fix redirects; we don't promise rankings or traffic.

Email hello@swynq.com with your old and new URLs · How Migration Repair works

Prefer to fix it yourself? The DIY Fix Kit ($49, ₹3,999 in India, no GST) gives you a ready-to-import redirect file for Webflow, Framer or WordPress, matched to your new pages and re-checked after 7 days. It is not on sale yet. See the Fix Kit

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