Redesigning a website without losing Google rankings

Why redesigns lose rankings

A new design on its own does not upset Google. What upsets it is what often changes alongside the design: page addresses, page content, page titles and the way pages link to each other.

Google ranks individual pages, not whole websites. Each of your pages has built up its own history: the searches it shows up for, the links pointing to it from other sites, and how people behave when they land on it. If a redesign removes that page, or moves it to a new address without telling Google, that history is cut off. Google sees a page that has vanished (a 404 error) and a brand-new page it knows nothing about.

The common causes of a lasting drop are:

• Changed page addresses with no redirects. /services/roofing.html becomes /roofing/ and nothing joins the two.
• Content cut back. A detailed 900-word service page is replaced with three lines and a photo.
• Pages dropped altogether. Old blog posts or town pages that quietly brought in visitors are left out of the new site.
• Titles and headings rewritten. The words people search for disappear from the places Google weighs most.
• The new site blocked from Google. A “do not index” setting left switched on from the test site is more common than you would think.
• Slower pages. Heavy images and scripts can make the new site slower on phones than the old one.

Every one of these is avoidable with a bit of planning.

Before you start: take a snapshot

You cannot protect what you have not measured. Before anything changes, record where you stand.

• List every page address. Crawl the current site with a tool such as Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 addresses) and export the list. Add anything in your sitemap that the crawl missed.
• Export your Search Console data. In Google Search Console, export the Pages and Queries reports for the last 12 months. This tells you which pages actually bring in visitors and for which searches.
• Note the pages with links. Search Console’s Links report shows which of your pages other sites link to. These pages must be redirected, even if you are retiring them.
• Save the current titles and descriptions. The crawl export will include them.
• Benchmark speed. Run your main pages through PageSpeed Insights so you can compare after launch.

If you do not have Google Search Console set up, do it now. It is free, and it is the main way you will spot problems after launch.

Build a redirect map

The redirect map is the single most important document in a redesign. It is a simple spreadsheet with two columns: the old address and the new address.

A few rules make it work:

1. Every old page that has visitors or links gets a row. No exceptions.
2. Redirect to the closest match, not to the home page. Sending everything to the home page is treated by Google much like a missing page.
3. Use 301 (permanent) redirects, not 302 (temporary) ones.
4. Avoid chains. If a page was already redirected in an earlier redesign, point the original address straight at the final page rather than hopping through two redirects.
5. Keep the redirects in place for good. Old links on other sites and in people’s bookmarks will keep arriving for years.

If you can keep the same page addresses, even better: fewer redirects means less to go wrong. But do not keep a messy structure purely to avoid redirects. Done properly, redirects work well.

Keep the content that earns your rankings

A redesign is a good time to improve content, but be careful about what you throw away.

• Keep your best-performing pages at least as detailed as they are now. If a page ranks well, improve it rather than cutting it back.
• Keep the search phrases in titles and H1s. If “emergency plumber Chelmsford” is in the title of a page that ranks for it, the new title should still say that.
• Merge thin pages carefully. Three short pages about similar things can become one stronger page, with all three old addresses redirected to it.
• Keep internal links. If your service pages link to each other and to your town pages, the new site should do the same.
• Carry over structured data. If the old site had schema markup for your business, reviews or FAQs, the new one should too.

Launch-day checklist

Launch day is where most avoidable problems happen. Work through this list in order.

• Remove any “noindex” setting and password protection from the new site
• Check robots.txt is not blocking the whole site
• Load the redirect map onto the server and test a sample of old addresses in a browser
• Make sure both www and non-www, and http and https, all end up at one version of each page
• Check every page has a unique title, a meta description and one H1
• Submit the new XML sitemap in Google Search Console
• Use Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to request indexing for the home page and key service pages
• Update your Google Business Profile website link if the address of the page it points to has changed
• Check analytics and any conversion tracking (form sends, calls) are working
• Test contact forms by actually sending one

The weeks after launch

Some movement in rankings during the first week or two is normal. Google has to recrawl the site, follow the redirects and reassess the new pages. What matters is the trend over the following weeks.

Check these regularly for the first month or two:

• Search Console Pages report. Look for a rise in “Not found (404)” pages. Each one is an old address that needs a redirect.
• Search Console Performance report. Compare clicks and impressions against the same period before launch, page by page.
• Key searches. Check where you appear for the handful of searches that bring you most of your work.
• Enquiries. Rankings are only a means to an end. Are calls and form sends holding up?

If a particular page has dropped and stayed down, compare it against the old version you saved. Usually the cause is obvious: a missing redirect, lost content, or a changed title.

Should you change platform or domain at the same time?

Moving from WordPress to another system, or from one host to another, is fine during a redesign as long as the page addresses are mapped and redirected. The platform itself matters less than the addresses and content.

Changing your domain name is different. It is a much bigger change and Google has a specific process for it (the Change of Address tool in Search Console). If you can, do the redesign first, let it settle, then move domains, so you can tell which change caused any problem.

How we handle it

Every redesign we do includes the redirect map as standard. Our fixed prices are £995 for up to 5 pages, £1,995 for up to 12 pages with content rewritten for search and Search Console set up, and £3,495 for a larger site or shop, including product and content migration. If you would rather do the work yourself, the checklists above cover the essentials.

If your site is dated but still brings in work, see our website redesign page, or get in touch and we will look at what your current pages rank for before suggesting anything. For ongoing rankings after launch, see SEO and AI search, and for wider costs, read how much a website costs in the UK.