Redirect Maps (migration)

Redirect Maps (migration) are automated systems that use embeddings to match old URLs to new ones during site migration. Instead of manually mapping thousands of redirects, the system creates vector embeddings of content from both old and new sites, then finds the most similar content in the new site structure for each old URL. Cosine similarity indicates match quality. A high similarity score (0.9+) suggests a good redirect, while a low score (below 0.7) indicates no suitable equivalent and new content must be created. Embedding-based redirect mapping can save dozens of hours on large migrations. For example, when migrating a 5,000-page site to a new CMS, it reduces the risk of organic traffic loss.

In practice, generate redirect maps using embeddings, then manually verify your top 50 pages by traffic—those URLs are too important to trust to automation alone.