How-to

Moving your lab website when you change universities

Changing institutions? How to move your lab website without losing your content, your Google ranking or your students: what to export, how to handle the old address, and how to rebuild in an afternoon.

By the Labsite team · 31 October 2026 · 2 min read

Moving a lab is a huge job: equipment, people, grants, and a hundred forms. The website tends to be an afterthought — until the old university switches off your pages and the first link a prospective student finds is a 404.

Here is how to move a lab website cleanly.

1. Find out what happens to the old site

University-hosted lab pages usually belong to the department. Ask the web team:

When will the old pages be removed? Sometimes immediately, sometimes after a few months.
Can they redirect the old address to your new site? A permanent (301) redirect keeps your search ranking and every old link working. Many web teams will do this if you ask before you leave.
Can you get an export of the content, especially images and files?

If they can't redirect, ask for a short "This lab has moved to …" note on the old page.

2. Save everything before it disappears

Even without an export, make your own copy:

Text of every page (copy into a document if needed)
Photos of people, lab and research figures, at full size
The publication list
Downloads such as CVs, protocols, software and data links
The news archive

3. Choose an address you will keep

This is the moment to stop tying the lab's address to an institution. Your own domain (yourlab.org) or a builder address stays the same through every future move; your new university's web team can still link to it. See university website vs your own lab domain.

4. Rebuild, update and announce

Update the affiliation everywhere: home page, PI page, contact page, the footer.
Say clearly on the home page that the lab has moved and is recruiting at its new home — moves are a natural time to hire. Our guide to writing a Join us page helps here.
Post a news item about the move.
Update the website link on your Google Scholar profile, ORCID, social accounts and email signature.

5. Keep your Google ranking

Search engines treat a new address as a new site. To carry your ranking across: use a redirect from the old pages if at all possible, keep the same page structure, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console, and ask collaborators to update links. More in how to make your lab website show up on Google.

The fast way: import the old site

If the old site is still online, Labsite can rebuild it for you. Paste its address and Labsite reads every page and rebuilds it — people, publications, news and photos, at full resolution — while you watch. You can try it on your home page without an account, then pick a new design from the templates, update the affiliation, and publish on your own domain.