Move an existing site onto HubPeople

Before you start

• The toolkit installed. If you have not done it yet, see install the toolkit.
• Access to your domain's DNS. You only need it on launch day.
• Google Search Console, if you have it. It shows which pages bring you visits, so you know which ones matter most.

1Ask Claude to read your site

In the Claude desktop app, open the Code tab, open your toolkit folder and start a new chat. Then ask, with your own site and brand:

Claude confirms the brand, then reads the site. A few hundred pages takes several minutes. Nothing is written to your brand while it reads.

2Agree the plan

Claude tells you what it found and suggests a plan: what comes across, and which pages share one layout. Change anything you like, then agree it. Nothing is built until you do.

3Check the pages as they are built

Claude builds a few pages at a time and shows you each one. They are on a temporary address, so ask Claude for the link to any page and open it.

Check them on a phone, and check your join links work. Ask for changes the same way you would when building any page.

4Get your redirects ready

Most addresses stay the same and need nothing. Any old address that changes needs a redirect to its new page, so visitors and Google still find it.

Set them up in Cloudflare, or wherever your domain's DNS is managed, ready to switch on at launch. That way they work before visitors ever reach HubPeople.

If you cannot do it there, use your brand's Redirect Rules tab in the portal instead.

5Go live, in this order

1. Link your domain on the brand's Domain Link tab. See linking a domain.
2. Point your domain at HubPeople with a CNAME record.
   • Best: in Cloudflare, with the proxy on (the orange cloud). See Cloudflare DNS and SSL.
   • Otherwise: at your DNS provider, with no proxy. See linking a domain.
3. Switch on your redirects.
4. Clear your DNS provider's cache, so nobody is shown the old site.
5. Turn search indexing on. See search indexing. A new site left hidden from Google is the most common way a move goes wrong.
6. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. See sitemaps.

6After launch

Open a few of your old addresses and check each one lands on the right page. Then keep an eye on Google Search Console for a couple of weeks. Some movement in rankings is normal. An old page showing an error is not, so fix those first.

Good to know

• Which brand to move firstAn established domain whose signups mostly come from search, and whose site has not been rebuilt in a while.
• A sister site in another countryIf you pair matching pages across the two sites, publish the pairing on both on launch day, not before. If only one side has it, search engines ignore it.

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