<b>Q: My URLs changed trailing slashes and www. Is that a 'real' migration?</b>

<b>Q: My URLs changed trailing slashes and www. Is that a 'real' migration?</b>

Short answer: yes — to Google these are different URLs, so treat it like a move.

Long answer: example.com/page and example.com/page/ are technically distinct, as are www and non-www, and http and https. Most sites should pick ONE version of each and 301 the others to it. When a redesign quietly flips your trailing-slash convention or your www preference, you've changed every URL on the site without realizing it.

The symptom: rankings flicker, Search Console shows duplicate URLs, and you swear 'we didn't change anything.'

What to standardize:

— Pick www or non-www, redirect the other.
— Pick trailing-slash or not, redirect the other.
— Make sure internal links and canonicals use the chosen version.

Next step: decide your canonical format, set 301s for the alternates, and update internal links to match. Then crawl to confirm you're not bouncing between /page and /page/ in a chain.