How to move or redesign a website without losing search traffic

A new website is a good moment to improve how a business looks and what it says. It is also a moment when search visibility can be damaged without anyone noticing for weeks. Pages that used to appear in Google disappear, links from other sites lead to error pages and customers who bookmarked an address find nothing there.

Most of this is avoidable. It needs no specialist tools, only knowing what exists today, deciding what happens to each page and checking after launch. The steps are the same whether you are redesigning on the same platform, moving to a new one or, more rarely, changing domain. Nothing here can guarantee that rankings and traffic stay exactly as they were, and some movement after a relaunch is normal.

Why moves go wrong

Search engines know your site by its addresses. If a page at one address becomes a page at another, or disappears, the search engine has to relearn the site. Common causes of lost traffic are:

• page addresses (URLs) that change without a redirect from the old one;
• useful pages dropped because nobody realised they were being found;
• the new site left blocked from search by a “noindex” setting or robots file carried over from testing;
• wording rewritten so heavily that a page no longer matches what people were searching for;
• the sitemap, Search Console and Business Profile still pointing at the old structure.

Step 1: list what exists today

Before designing anything, make an inventory of the current site’s pages. Useful sources include:

• the sitemap, usually at an address ending in sitemap.xml;
• the Pages and Performance reports in Google Search Console, which show which addresses Google has indexed and which receive clicks;
• a crawl of the site with a free crawler, which also finds pages that are not in the sitemap;
• the navigation, footer and links in emails, social profiles and printed material.

Put the addresses in a spreadsheet. Beside each one, note its title, whether it receives search clicks and whether other sites link to it. The Links report in Search Console gives a rough view of which pages attract links. This inventory turns “we think we have about twenty pages” into a list you can check off.

Step 2: decide what each page becomes

For every address, choose one outcome.

• Keep it at the same address with the same or improved content. This is the safest result for any page that receives search traffic.
• Move it to a new address and redirect the old address to the new one.
• Merge it into a better page and redirect the old address there.
• Remove it because it has no value, in which case a missing page error is the correct response.

Be cautious with pages that bring in clicks. If an old page is found for something customers actually search for, keep its subject, its main heading and opening text, the answers to real questions such as prices, opening times and how to book, and where possible its address. Improving a page is different from rewriting it from scratch. If the new design cannot hold some information, move it elsewhere rather than dropping it.

It is also sensible not to change everything at once. If the platform, design, wording and addresses all change together and traffic falls, it is hard to tell which change caused it.

Step 3: plan the redirects

A redirect sends visitors and search engines from an old address to a new one. For a permanent move, use a 301 redirect, which tells search engines the old address has been replaced. A 302 is for temporary changes and is the wrong choice for a permanent move.

Good redirect practice is straightforward:

• send each old address to the closest equivalent new page, not to the homepage by default, because mass redirects to the homepage can be treated as errors rather than as a move;
• avoid chains, where one address redirects to another that redirects to a third, because each step slows things down and adds a chance of failure;
• redirect the versions with and without “www”, and with and without a trailing slash, consistently;
• keep redirects in place for a long time. Google’s site move guidance is to keep them for as long as possible, generally at least a year, which in practice means while the old addresses still receive visitors or links;
• update your own internal links to the new addresses, so visitors do not pass through a redirect every time.

Write the old and new addresses side by side in the spreadsheet. That sheet becomes the checklist you test against after launch.

Step 4: build and test away from search

Build the new site somewhere search engines cannot index, such as a private or preview address, and check it before it goes live. That protects the old site’s position while the work is under way. It also creates the most common launch mistake: the setting that blocks search engines during testing is left switched on after launch. Make removing it an explicit launch task.

Before going live, check that every page in the inventory is present or deliberately redirected, each page has a clear title and one main heading, the new sitemap lists only pages that should be found, and forms, booking links and phone numbers work. Keep a copy of the old site until the new one has been checked, in case something was missed.

Step 5: launch with a plan

The redirects, the domain settings and the site itself should change together, at a quiet time, with someone ready to check immediately rather than assume it worked. If the domain is staying the same, the main work is putting the redirects live and removing any block on indexing. If the domain is changing, keep the old one registered and redirecting, as the guide to choosing and owning a domain explains.

Step 6: check straight afterwards

In the first hours and days:

1. Test every important old address and a sample of the rest, and confirm each reaches the right new page in a single step.
2. Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console, or view the page source, to confirm live pages are not marked noindex and the canonical address is the one you want.
3. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console, and in Bing Webmaster Tools if you use it, and confirm it is read successfully.
4. Check the robots file is not blocking the site.
5. Click through the main journeys: contact form, booking link, phone number and map.
6. Check that analytics, if you use it, records each visit once.

Then watch patiently. In Search Console, look at the Pages report for new errors and for important pages that are not indexed, and compare Performance over several weeks with the same period before the move. Search engines take time to recrawl a site, so short-term changes are normal and should not trigger hurried edits. A steady fall that does not recover is the cue to investigate, starting with redirects and indexing settings.

If the domain changes, Search Console has a Change of Address tool and Bing Webmaster Tools has a similar site-move feature. Check each tool’s current requirements before relying on it.

Update the places outside the website

A move is not finished until the links that point to the site are updated. Check:

• the website link on your Google Business Profile, whose details should still match the new site (the guide to the website and Google Business Profile explains how the two fit together);
• social profiles, directory listings, marketplace and booking-platform pages;
• email signatures, invoices, printed material and adverts;
• links from partners or suppliers that you can ask to update.

Redirects cover most visitors meanwhile, but links that go straight to the right address are cleaner. Keep Search Console under the business’s control too: a property for the same domain keeps its history through a redesign.

How this fits a Page & Place project

Page & Place’s web design work starts with discovery and practical content guidance. The standard website package includes domain connection, launch support and two revision rounds, and every new website includes search foundations: titles, descriptions, headings, internal links, sitemap and indexing foundations and Google Search Console setup. Complex migrations are quoted separately, and additional approved work outside a package, where an hourly scope suits it, is £50 per hour. Page & Place treats Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools as accounts the business controls.

If you later move away from Page & Place, the domain stays with you, the complete website source code can be provided once the site has been paid for and a normal source-code and account handover is included. Additional migration work you ask Page & Place to carry out is agreed first and charged at £50 per hour.

For a site that is already live, search optimisation uses Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools data and indexing, sitemap and crawl checks to find improvements. Rankings, traffic and enquiries cannot be guaranteed. The Search Console guide explains the reports used above, and if you are planning a redesign you can describe your current site and what you want to change.