A website redesign is an exciting opportunity to refresh your brand and improve user experience. However, without proper planning, it can also trigger a devastating drop in search rankings that takes months to recover from. The good news? With the right SEO strategy, you can protect your hard-earned visibility while modernising your site.
Why Website Migrations Are Risky for SEO
Search engines like Google have already indexed your existing pages, built trust in your domain, and understand your site structure. When you launch a redesign, any changes to URLs, content, or site architecture can confuse search engines and temporarily damage your rankings. Common pitfalls include broken links, lost content, and missing redirects that send users and search bots to dead ends.
Essential Steps to Protect Your Rankings
Conduct a comprehensive content audit. Before touching anything, document every page on your current site, including URLs, meta data, rankings, and traffic. This inventory becomes your roadmap for what needs to be preserved or redirected.
Implement 301 redirects meticulously. Every old URL that’s changing should redirect to its new equivalent using 301 (permanent) redirects. Map old URLs to new ones in a spreadsheet, then work with your developer to implement them before launch. This passes along your existing SEO value to the new pages.
Maintain your best-performing content. If certain pages drive significant organic traffic, keep their core content intact during the migration. You can update the design and improve the layout, but don’t throw away what’s already working.
Preserve your internal linking structure. Internal links help search engines understand your site hierarchy and distribute page authority. Ensure your new site maintains logical connections between related content.
Update your XML sitemap and resubmit. Generate a fresh sitemap for your new site structure and submit it through Google Search Console. This helps search engines discover and crawl your updated pages more efficiently.
Monitor everything post-launch. Watch your Search Console for crawl errors, traffic drops, and ranking changes. Address issues immediately, as quick action can prevent minor problems from becoming major setbacks.
The Bottom Line
Website migrations don’t have to be SEO disasters. With careful planning, proper redirects, and ongoing monitoring, you can successfully redesign your site while maintaining or even improving your search visibility. The key is treating SEO as a core part of the migration process, not an afterthought.
Ready to redesign your website without sacrificing your search rankings? At VEBIT, we specialise in SEO-friendly website migrations that preserve your digital presence while delivering a stunning new site. Get in touch to discuss your project.