Redesign without losing SEO: a website migration checklist

A new website should bring in more visitors, not fewer. Yet a sharp drop in Google traffic after a redesign is common, and almost always avoidable. The causes are mechanical, so the fixes are too.

This checklist covers a redesign or rebuild where the domain stays the same and page addresses may change. That process is what search people call a website migration. If you are also moving to a new domain, there’s a short section on that near the end. If you are still deciding whether you need a new design or a full rebuild, start with Redesign or redevelop?

Why redesigns lose search traffic

Google ranks pages, not websites. Each page has built up signals over the years: links from other sites, a history of clicks, a clear topic. A redesign puts all of that at risk in a few predictable ways:

• Addresses change without redirects. Google and every site that linked to you hit a “page not found” error.
• Pages that rank are removed or merged into a page about something else.
• Content is cut back. A slimmer page that no longer answers the question it used to rank for.
• Titles and headings change to wording nobody searches for.
• The new site is hidden by mistake. A “noindex” setting or a robots.txt block left over from the test site.
• Internal links thin out, so important pages are harder for Google to find.

Before you build: record what works today

You can only protect what you’ve measured. Save these before anyone starts designing:

• Every address on the current site. Use a crawler, your CMS’s export, and your XML sitemap. Crawlers miss pages that nothing links to, so combine all three.
• Search Console data for 16 months. Export the pages and the searches from the Performance report, including clicks, impressions and average position.
• Pages other sites link to. Search Console’s Links report lists your most linked pages. These need redirects most of all.
• Titles, descriptions and headings of every page that brings in search visits.
• A baseline: monthly clicks, enquiries and top landing pages, so you can compare after launch.

Our guide to auditing your own website covers the wider review, beyond search.

Map every old address to a new one

This is the heart of the job. Google’s own guide to site moves with URL changes starts with the same step: list the old addresses and decide where each one goes.

Build a spreadsheet with one row per old address and these columns:

• the old address;
• the new address it should go to;
• clicks and links from your exports, so you know which rows matter most;
• a status: same address, redirect, or retire.

Some rules make the mapping straightforward:

• Keep addresses that don’t need to change. The safest redirect is the one you don’t need. Blog posts and case studies can often keep their exact addresses.
• Redirect to the closest match, not the home page. A retired service page should go to the service that replaced it, or its parent page.
• Use permanent redirects. Google recommends permanent redirects such as 301 or 308 for a move. Its guide to redirects and Google Search explains that a permanent redirect tells Google the new address should take the old one’s place.
• Avoid chains. Point each old address straight to its final page, not through two or three hops.
• Include the odd ones. Old PDFs, image files that other sites embed, the http:// and non-www versions of your domain, and addresses with or without a trailing slash.

Only retire an address with no replacement when it has no search traffic, no links and no real visitors. Those can return a 404 “not found” page with a clear way back into the site.

Keep what Google already likes

Redirects carry the signals across. The new page still has to deserve them. For every page that brings in search visits:

• Keep its topic. If the old page answered “how to manage a website redesign project”, the new page should too.
• Keep or improve its content. Edit for clarity, but don’t cut the parts that answer the question.
• Keep the searched words in the title and main heading. Rewrite them only when you have a reason from the data.
• Keep internal links to the page from your menus, related pages and posts.
• Carry over structured data, image alt text and descriptive file names.

If you want to know more about the extra code search engines read, our guide to structured data explains it.

Test on a staging site that Google can’t see

Build and review the new site on a private test address. Keep it out of Google with a password or a noindex rule, so it never competes with your live site.

Before launch, test the redirect map automatically. A short script can request every old address and check that it lands on the right new page with a 200 response. Checking by hand works for 20 pages, not 200.

Then check the things that differ between staging and live:

• the noindex setting and any password are switched off for the live site;
• robots.txt allows search engines to crawl the pages you want found;
• canonical tags point at the live domain, not the staging one;
• the XML sitemap lists the new addresses on the live domain.

Launch day checklist

1. Redirects are live, and a sample of the most important ones is checked by hand.
2. The site can be indexed: no noindex, no robots.txt block, no password.
3. HTTPS works on every version of the domain, and http:// redirects to https://.
4. The new XML sitemap is submitted in Search Console.
5. Analytics and conversion tracking record visits and form sends.
6. Every form is tested and reaches the right inbox.
7. Titles and descriptions are in place on the key pages.
8. The old site is backed up and kept, in case you need to check what a page used to say.

The first 90 days after launch

Google needs time to recrawl the site and process the redirects. Its site move guide says visibility in Search may fluctuate for a while, and that a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move. Larger sites take longer.

• Week one: check the Page indexing report for “not found” errors and fix any missing redirects.
• Weeks two to six: compare clicks and positions for your top pages with the baseline. Look for pages that dropped sharply rather than the site total.
• Month three: the new pages should have replaced the old ones in search results. Anything still missing usually needs a redirect, more content or more internal links.

Keep the redirects in place. Google recommends keeping them for as long as possible, generally at least a year. We’d keep them for good: they cost nothing, and old links keep sending visitors for years.

If you’re changing domains too

Everything above still applies, with two additions. Redirect every address on the old domain to its match on the new one, and use the Change of Address tool in Search Console to tell Google about the move. The tool is only for domain changes, not for changing addresses within the same domain.

Questions we hear

Does a website redesign affect SEO?

Yes, for better or worse. A redesign that keeps or redirects every address, keeps the content that ranks, and loads faster can improve rankings. One that changes addresses without redirects usually loses traffic.

Should old pages redirect to the home page?

No. Send each old page to the closest matching new page. Redirecting everything to the home page sends visitors somewhere they didn’t expect, and Google’s site move guide warns it may be treated as a “soft 404”, which means much the same as a missing page. The exception is when several old pages were merged into one new page: they can all point to it.

How long does it take for rankings to recover after a redesign?

If the migration is done well, there may be little to recover. Expect some movement for a few weeks while Google processes the changes. A fall that lasts longer than that usually points to missing redirects or content that was cut.

Do we need an SEO specialist for a migration?

For a large site, an online store or a domain change, it helps to have someone who has done it before. For a smaller site, a web team that maps and tests every redirect can handle it. Ask any team you’re considering how they will do it, step by step.

Planning a redesign?

We map and test every old address when we rebuild a site, and we look after search as part of the job. See our SEO and AI search work and our website design and redesign service, read our website redesign project plan, or configure your website and get a quote.