Agencies put off a new website for years, and one of the reasons is fear of losing the search rankings the old one has built up. The fear is reasonable, because a careless move can lose them. A careful one keeps them, and usually improves on them.
1. List every address on the old site
Before anything changes, make a list of every page the old site has: the homepage, service pages, area guides, team pages, blog posts and listing pages. The old site’s sitemap is a good start; a crawling tool will find the rest. Search Console shows which of those pages actually bring visitors.
2. Decide where each one goes
Map every old address to its closest equivalent on the new site. An area guide goes to the new area guide, a service page to the new service page. Listings that no longer exist should go to the most relevant search page, not to the homepage, which search engines treat much like a missing page.
3. Redirect them permanently
Each mapping becomes a permanent (301) redirect, so anyone following an old link, and every search engine, lands in the right place. Avoid chains of redirects, where one old address passes through several before arriving.
4. Keep what already ranks
If a page ranks well for a valuable search, keep its subject, its main heading and its title close to what they were. A new design is a chance to improve the copy, but not to throw away what is working.
5. Check after launch
- Test a sample of old addresses, especially the ones that bring visitors.
- Watch Search Console for pages not found over the following weeks.
- Submit the new sitemap, and if the domain itself changed, use the change of address tool.
Expect some movement for a few weeks while search engines catch up. If the redirects are right, rankings settle where they were or better.
One change at a time
If you can, avoid changing the domain, the design and all the content on the same day. Each is manageable alone. Together they make it hard to tell what caused any drop.
We handle the redirects
Every Realist migration maps and tests your old addresses before launch. How onboarding works.