ByAhsan NadeemLead Full-Stack Engineer
A redesign is exciting right up until organic traffic drops by a third the week after launch. It happens because a migration changes things search engines have learned over years: URLs, internal links, page content and metadata. The good news is that almost every traffic loss we've seen came from a short list of avoidable mistakes.
This checklist follows Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes, plus what we've learned from moving real sites.
What kind of migration are you doing?
Migration type | Example | SEO risk | Change of Address tool? |
|---|---|---|---|
Redesign, same URLs | New design, same pages and paths | Low | No |
Platform change | WordPress to a headless CMS | Medium: URLs and templates often change | No (same domain) |
URL structure change | /blog/post to /insights/post | Medium to high | No |
Protocol change | http to https | Low if redirected properly | No |
Domain change | oldbrand.com to newbrand.com | High | Yes |
Before launch
1. Benchmark everything
- Export a full crawl of the current site: URLs, titles, descriptions, canonicals, status codes.
- Export your top pages by clicks and impressions from Search Console for the last 12 months.
- List pages with backlinks from other sites; they carry authority you don't want to lose.
- Record current rankings for your most important keywords.
2. Build the redirect map
Every old URL that gets traffic or links should point to the most relevant new URL, not to the homepage. Keep it in a spreadsheet with two columns:
old_url,new_url
/blog/how-we-scope-projects,/insights/how-to-scope-a-software-project
/services/web-design,/services/web-development/business-websites
/team.html,/about#team
/contact-us,/contactRedirect each old URL directly to its final destination. Chains (A → B → C) slow crawling and can lose signals along the way.
3. Carry the SEO elements across
- Titles and meta descriptions of your best pages, at least as good as before.
- Headings and body content: if a page ranks, don't strip its content in the redesign.
- Structured data (organisation, articles, products, FAQs).
- Canonical tags pointing at the new URLs, never the old ones.
- Image file names and alt text for pages that get image search traffic.
- hreflang tags, if you have language versions.
4. Test on staging, but keep staging out of Google
Protect staging with a password or noindex, and crawl it to check redirects, canonicals and internal links before launch. Then write "remove staging noindex" at the top of your launch checklist, in bold. It's the single most common reason a new site vanishes from search.
On launch day
- Deploy the redirects together with the new site, not a few days later.
- Check robots.txt allows crawling and doesn't block CSS or JavaScript.
- Confirm no page carries a leftover noindex tag.
- Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console. Google also suggests keeping a sitemap of the old URLs for a while, so it finds the redirects faster.
- Spot-check your top 50 old URLs: each should return a single 301 or 308 to the right page.
- For a domain change, use the Change of Address tool once the redirects are live.
A quick way to check a redirect from the command line:
curl -sI https://www.example.com/blog/how-we-scope-projects | grep -iE "^(HTTP|location)"
# HTTP/2 301
# location: https://www.example.com/insights/how-to-scope-a-software-projectRedirects are a promise to everyone who ever linked to you. Keep it for at least a year, and preferably for good.
After launch
When | Check | Where |
|---|---|---|
Day 1–3 | 404s, redirect errors, server errors | Server logs, a site crawl, Search Console |
Week 1 | Indexing of the new sitemap, coverage issues | Search Console: Pages report |
Weeks 1–4 | Clicks and impressions for top pages vs your benchmark | Search Console: Performance |
Weeks 2–6 | Rankings for key terms; Core Web Vitals | Rank tracker, Search Console |
Month 3+ | Whether the old URLs have dropped out of the index | Search Console, site: searches |
Google notes that a medium-sized site can take a few weeks for most pages to move in its index, and larger sites longer. Some fluctuation in that window is normal. A steady decline after it usually points to missing redirects, lost content or a technical block.
The most common migration mistakes
- Redirecting everything to the homepage. Google treats these much like missing pages.
- Leaving the staging noindex in place. The whole site quietly drops out of search.
- Changing URLs that didn't need to change. Every changed URL is a risk; keep the ones that work.
- Thinner content in the new design. A beautiful page with half the text can rank worse.
- Removing redirects after a few months. Old links on other sites keep sending visitors and signals for years.
- Temporary (302) redirects for permanent moves. Use 301 or 308 when the move is permanent.
Frequently asked questions
Will I lose rankings when I migrate my website?
Some short-term fluctuation is normal. With complete one-to-one redirects, preserved content and no technical blocks, most sites recover their previous visibility within weeks. Sites that lose traffic long-term almost always have missing redirects or removed content.
How long should I keep 301 redirects?
Google recommends keeping them for at least a year. Since old links on other websites never go away, we suggest keeping them permanently; they cost almost nothing to maintain.
Should I use 301 or 308 redirects?
Both are permanent and Google treats them the same way for search. 308 also preserves the request method (for example POST), which matters for forms and APIs, not for normal pages.
Do I need the Change of Address tool for moving to https?
No. Google says the tool is for moving between domains or subdomains. For http to https, or for changing paths on the same domain, redirects and updated sitemaps are enough.
Is it a good time to change URLs when I redesign?
Only if the new structure is clearly better for users and search. Changing URLs adds risk; if your current URLs are clean and descriptive, keep them.
We plan migrations with a complete redirect map and monitor Search Console after launch. See our business website service, or tell us about your move.
