Q: To watch how Google is handling the move, should I use a crawler or log analysis?
Love this question — most people only run crawlers and miss what Google is actually doing.
Short answer: crawlers show what's possible to find; log analysis shows what Googlebot is really doing.
Long answer:
A crawler (Screaming Frog, etc.) simulates a bot and tells you your redirects and links are correct — essential pre-launch and for spotting broken structure.
But after launch, the real question is behavior: is Googlebot rediscovering old URLs and hitting your 301s? Are crawlers wasting budget on redirect chains? Only your server logs answer that. Tools like Screaming Frog's Log File Analyser or a quick GoAccess pass reveal Googlebot's real hit pattern, status codes returned, and how fast it's adopting new URLs.
GSC Crawl Stats is a lighter proxy if you can't get raw logs.
Next step: post-launch, pull a week of server logs, filter to Googlebot, and confirm it's crawling new URLs and getting 301s (not 404s) on old ones.
Migration Helpdesk
@MigrationHelpdesk
Q: To watch how Google is handling the move, should I use a crawler or log analysis?
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