Redesigning your website? How to keep your Google traffic through the move

A redesign can put your Google traffic at risk if page addresses change, useful content or internal links disappear, pages stop rendering properly, or something accidentally blocks search engines. Keeping important pages accessible, redirecting changed URLs to relevant replacements and checking the new site's content and technical setup can reduce that risk, but cannot guarantee unchanged rankings. Google says that for a medium-sized site, it can take "a few weeks or more" for new URLs to start replacing old ones in results, and some fluctuation is normal while that happens (Google Search Central: site moves with URL changes).

This guide gives you a checklist for before, during and after launch. It's written for small business sites with tens or a few hundred pages, not large e-commerce catalogues.

First, work out what kind of change you're making

The risk depends on what changes. A new look on the same URLs is very different from a new domain.

Google's advice is to change one thing at a time where you can: for example, move domain first and redesign later (Google Search Central). That makes it much easier to see what caused any drop.

Before launch: record what's working now

You can't protect what you haven't measured. Before anything changes:

1. Export your top pages from Google Search Console. In the Performance report, switch to the Pages tab, set the date range to the last 12 months and export. These are the pages that bring you search traffic. If you don't use Search Console yet, our Search Console setup guide explains how.
2. List every URL on the current site. Use your sitemap, your CMS's page list and the Search Console export. Include PDFs and image files that people link to or find in search; Google specifically mentions these (Google Search Central).
3. Save a copy of key pages. Note the title tag, meta description, main heading and main content of your top pages. Rewrites during redesigns often drop the very paragraphs that answered the question people were searching for.
4. Note your baseline. Write down monthly clicks from Google and monthly enquiries, so you can compare fairly after launch.

Build your redirect map

A redirect map is a simple spreadsheet with two columns: old URL and new URL. It's the single most important document in a redesign.

• Every changed URL that had traffic or links needs a decision. Redirect it to a genuinely relevant replacement, not just the homepage. Google warns that sending many old URLs to an unrelated page such as the homepage can confuse users and may be treated as a soft 404 (Google Search Central).
• Merging pages is fine. If three thin service pages become one stronger page, redirect all three to it.
• Pages you're deliberately removing with no replacement should return a 404 or 410 status, rather than redirecting somewhere irrelevant.
• Avoid chains. Redirect old URLs straight to their final destination. Google can follow several hops but recommends going directly to the final URL (Google Search Central). If your site has been redesigned before, check whether existing redirects now need updating to point at the newest URLs.

A hypothetical example for a [Business name] cleaning company:

Use the right kind of redirect

Use permanent, server-side redirects (HTTP 301 or 308). Google recommends these "whenever possible", and says 301 and other permanent redirects won't negatively affect PageRank (Google Search Central). In practice:

• Most website builders (Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Shopify) have a redirects or "URL redirect manager" setting.
• On WordPress, a redirect plugin or your host's server settings can handle it.
• Avoid JavaScript or "meta refresh" redirects unless there's no alternative; Google treats client-side redirects as a last resort.

For a small site, move everything at once rather than in stages. Google recommends this for small and medium sites (Google Search Central).

Check the new site before it goes live

Many redesign traffic problems come from simple, avoidable mistakes. Check these on the staging site, and again on launch day:

• No leftover blocks. Staging sites may use noindex to keep pages out of Google or robots.txt to restrict crawling. A robots.txt block alone does not reliably prevent indexing, and it stops Google from seeing a page's noindex rule. At launch, remove temporary noindex rules and crawl blocks from pages you want indexed.
• Self-referencing canonical tags on each new page point to the new URL, not the old one or the staging address.
• Internal links point directly to new URLs, not through redirects.
• Titles and meta descriptions are carried over or improved, not reset to defaults like "Home" or "Untitled". Check 4 of our 30-minute SEO health check shows a quick way to review them.
• Important content is still there. Compare key pages against the copies you saved.
• Analytics and Search Console verification survive the move. If you verified Search Console with a meta tag or HTML file, the new site needs it too.

Launch day

1. Switch on the redirects and test a sample from your map. Google suggests the URL Inspection tool in Search Console for individual checks. For a small site, clicking through 20 to 30 old URLs from your spreadsheet is a sensible minimum.
2. Submit your new XML sitemap in Search Console.
3. If you've changed domain, use the Change of Address tool in Search Console on the old property. Google says you don't need it for HTTP to HTTPS changes, www/non-www changes or URL path changes on the same domain. For a domain move, Google says to submit a change of address for all subdomain variants of the old domain, including www and non-www versions, even unused ones. Make sure these variants are verified in Search Console (Google Search Console Help).
4. Update links you control: your Google Business Profile website link, social media profiles, email signatures and any ads pointing to old landing pages.

After launch: what to watch for the next few months

These are suggested check-in times, not a promised recovery schedule.

• Week 1: Check Search Console's Page indexing report for spikes in "Not found (404)" or "Server error (5xx)". Click through your main services from the homepage on a phone.
• Weeks 2 to 8: In the Performance report, new URLs should gradually start receiving impressions and clicks, while old URLs fade. If you submitted both sitemaps, the old one's indexed count should fall as the new one's rises. Our Search Console guide explains where to find these reports.
• Month 3: Compare clicks and enquiries with your baseline. Temporary fluctuations can happen during a move. Investigate a large or sustained drop promptly: missing redirects, lost content and crawl blocks are possible causes, but changes in search demand or Google's systems can also affect traffic.

Keep your redirects in place for at least a year, and ideally indefinitely. Google says "generally at least 1 year" and recommends keeping them as long as possible for users who follow old links (Google Search Central). If you change domain, keep renewing the old domain so the redirects keep working.

What's in your control, and what isn't

In your control: keeping or redirecting every valuable URL, preserving the content that answers your customers' questions, removing staging blocks, submitting sitemaps and fixing errors quickly.

Not in your control: exactly how long Google takes to process the move, temporary ranking fluctuations, and changes in competition or Google's systems that happen to coincide with your launch. A well-run move reduces risk; it can't guarantee your rankings stay exactly the same, and a redesign on its own won't guarantee better rankings either.