A new website can quietly undo years of search rankings. Pages move, URLs change, and Google is left with links that lead nowhere. Most of that damage is avoidable with a few hours of preparation. Use this checklist whenever you redesign, switch platforms, or move to a new domain.

Before you build: record what you have

You cannot protect rankings you have not measured.

  • Crawl the current site and export every URL, title, meta description, and H1.
  • Export your top pages from Google Search Console and Google Analytics — the pages that bring in traffic, leads, and sales.
  • Export your backlinks. Pages other sites link to carry authority that a broken URL throws away.
  • Benchmark rankings for the keywords that matter to your business, so you have a “before” to compare against.

During the build: map every URL

The single most important document in a migration is the redirect map: every old URL, and the new URL it should point to.

  • Map one-to-one wherever you can. An old product page should redirect to the same product’s new page, not the homepage.
  • Use 301 (permanent) redirects, not 302s, so search engines transfer the old page’s value to the new one.
  • Avoid redirect chains. Point old URLs straight at their final destination, not through a series of hops.
  • Keep what ranks. If a page performs well, carry its content, title, and heading over rather than rewriting it from scratch.
  • Block the staging site from search engines so the unfinished version is never indexed alongside the live one.

Launch day: check before you announce

  • Test the redirects — run the full old-URL list and confirm each returns a 301 to the right page.
  • Remove the staging block. A leftover noindex tag or robots.txt disallow is the most common cause of a site vanishing from Google after launch.
  • Check canonical tags point to the new URLs.
  • Update the XML sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console.
  • Confirm tracking works — analytics, conversion tags, and form submissions.
  • If the domain changed, use the Change of Address tool in Search Console.

After launch: watch for 4–8 weeks

Some movement in rankings is normal while Google recrawls the site. What you are looking for is anything that does not recover.

  • Check Search Console weekly for crawl errors and pages reported as not found.
  • Compare rankings and traffic against your benchmark for your top pages.
  • Fix 404s quickly, starting with pages that have backlinks or used to bring in traffic.
  • Keep the redirects in place. Removing them a few months later loses the value they were passing.

The checklist at a glance

Stage Must do
Before Crawl the site, export top pages and backlinks, benchmark rankings
Build Map every old URL to a new one with 301s, keep ranking content, block staging
Launch Test redirects, remove the staging block, submit the new sitemap
After Monitor Search Console, fix 404s, keep the redirects

Planning a redesign? Our website design team builds the redirect plan into every project, and our SEO team can audit your current rankings before anything moves. Talk to us before you launch, not after.