A redesign is supposed to make things better. But it's also one of the most reliable ways to lose search traffic you spent years building, and the damage usually isn't noticed until the enquiries dry up a month later.
It's almost always avoidable. Here's the checklist, in the order it needs doing.
Before anything changes
1. Record what you have
Before a single page is designed, take a snapshot:
- Every URL on the current site. A crawler like Screaming Frog does this in minutes, or export the pages report from Search Console.
- Which pages bring in traffic, from Google Analytics or Search Console.
- Which searches you rank for, and roughly where. Search Console's Performance report shows this.
- Which pages other sites link to. These carry authority you don't want to throw away.
This is your baseline. Without it, you can't tell after launch whether anything went wrong, let alone what.
2. Decide what happens to every page
Go through the list and give each URL one of three fates:
- Keep: same page, same URL. The safest option.
- Move: new URL, same purpose. Needs a redirect.
- Remove: genuinely no longer needed. Still needs a redirect to the closest relevant page if it had traffic or links.
The pages that bring in traffic or enquiries should be the last ones you change.
While the new site is built
3. Keep the content that ranks
It's tempting to cut copy in a redesign because shorter looks cleaner. But if a page ranks because it thoroughly answers a question, cutting it to two paragraphs removes the reason it ranks. Rewrite it by all means. Don't gut it.
4. Keep the basics on every page
For each page that matters, carry over (or improve):
- the page title and meta description
- the main heading
- internal links pointing to it from the rest of the site
- any structured data, like FAQs, reviews or local business details
5. Block the staging site, then remember to unblock it
The development copy should be hidden from search engines so Google doesn't index a duplicate. A classic redesign disaster is that block being carried over to the live site at launch. Put "remove noindex" on the launch checklist in capital letters.
At launch
6. Put the redirects in
Every old URL that's moving should 301-redirect to its new home. Not to the homepage: to the specific, most relevant new page. A redirect to the homepage is treated much like a missing page.
7. Check the redirects actually work
Run the old URL list through a crawler and confirm every one lands on a live page in a single hop. Redirect chains (old to older to new) and loops are common and easy to miss.
8. Submit the new sitemap
In Search Console, submit the new sitemap and request indexing for your most important pages.
9. Check the tracking
Analytics, conversion tracking, call tracking, form notifications. A surprising number of launches lose a month of data because the tracking code didn't make it across. Submit a test enquiry and make sure it arrives and gets recorded.
After launch
10. Watch it for six weeks
Some movement in rankings for a week or two after a redesign is normal while Google re-crawls. A drop that's still there after a month isn't. Compare against your baseline weekly and check Search Console for 404 errors, which usually mean a missed redirect.
The short version
- Record every URL, its traffic and its rankings.
- Decide what happens to each page.
- Keep the content that ranks, and improve it rather than cutting it.
- Carry over titles, headings, internal links and structured data.
- Redirect every moved URL to its closest new equivalent.
- Remove the staging noindex at launch.
- Check tracking works before you celebrate.
- Watch Search Console for six weeks.
Done properly, a redesign should improve rankings: a faster site, better structured, with clearer pages for each service. That's what we aim for in every website redesign we take on.
If you're planning one, our website audit captures the baseline and the risks before any work starts, and you keep it whoever ends up doing the redesign.
