Website redesigns that keep your search visibility

1. Define what the redesign should improve

Begin with the problems the existing website creates for visitors and the team that maintains it. Are services hard to find? Does the enquiry form ask for too much information? Is important content difficult to update? Turn these observations into a short set of priorities before discussing a new visual style.

Keep useful content and familiar journeys in view. A redesign can change how a website looks without changing every page address or removing material that still helps customers. Ask each stakeholder to explain the problem behind a requested change so the plan stays grounded in visitor needs.

2. Make a content and page inventory

Create a working list of the current pages, their purpose, their owner and the action each page supports. Include downloads and other resources that visitors may reach directly. Note outdated information, duplicated explanations and unanswered customer questions.

Review evidence available to your business: enquiry patterns, questions received by staff and existing website reports. Use it to decide what deserves attention. For each page, choose whether to retain, improve, combine or retire it. Record the reasoning so the team can check decisions instead of revisiting them from memory.

3. Plan changes to page addresses

When URLs change, map each old address to its relevant new destination. Google’s official site-move guidance explains URL mapping and redirects, and warns against sending many unrelated pages to the homepage. Agree this mapping before launch so old bookmarks and external links have a sensible destination.

Give the map an owner. Include the old URL, the proposed new URL, the decision and whether it has been checked. If a page is being retired, decide deliberately what a visitor should encounter. Do not let the developer discover the content plan only after the replacement website is ready.

4. Review the new website as a customer

Ask someone who did not write the content to complete the main journeys. Can they understand what you provide, compare the relevant options and find the next step? Review the headings, descriptions, navigation and contact details together. A well-organized page should make sense without relying on a large decorative image.

Check the website on a small screen and with a keyboard. Inspect long headings, forms, tables and downloads. Test the ordinary paths as well as empty searches, invalid form entries and missing pages. Treat these states as part of the redesign, with clear instructions and a useful way forward.

5. Use a written launch checklist

Google’s migration guidance also covers updating internal links, canonical references and sitemap entries to the new URLs. Review production indexing settings carefully; a development site’s blocking settings should not accidentally remain on public pages intended for search.

Keep a separate business checklist alongside the technical one: correct services, current contact information, approved policy links, working enquiry delivery and an agreed person to handle problems. Confirm who can approve the launch and what the team will do if an essential customer journey fails. A written checklist makes responsibility visible.

6. Review the launch rather than assuming success

Record the launch date and any important content changes. Review customer enquiries, broken-link reports and the main journeys after release. Search rankings may fluctuate during a URL migration while Google recrawls and reindexes the website; a redesign cannot guarantee unchanged rankings.

Give each issue a clear owner and priority. A failed enquiry or unavailable product page deserves prompt attention. A visual preference can usually wait for the next review. Keep the change log useful enough that the team can connect an issue with a recent update and verify the correction.