Website redesign checklist

The short answer

Before a website redesign, record your traffic and list every URL. Keep URLs the same if you can, and map any that change to their new pages. During the build, keep the titles and content that earn visits. After launch, test every redirect, submit your sitemap and watch Search Console for several weeks.

Why redesigns lose traffic

A redesign that only changes colors and layout is low risk. Trouble starts when the redesign also changes page addresses, removes pages or rewrites the words. Those are often what search engines understood your site by.

The usual causes are easy to name. An old address that shows an error. A page that was bringing in visitors, deleted because it looked dull. A test setting that blocked search engines and was never turned off. Every one of them is avoidable, and that's what this checklist is for.

Set your expectations too. Google says that when addresses change, rankings can fluctuate while it recrawls your site, and that it can take a few weeks or more for a medium-sized site to settle. A careful move limits the damage. Nobody can promise none.

Google also gives a piece of advice that's easy to ignore, which is to change one thing at a time. If you can, move your domain first and change the layout afterward, because when something goes wrong you'll know which change caused it.

Before you start

Do all of this before anyone designs anything.

Record where you are. You can't tell whether a redesign helped or hurt without a baseline.

• Export Search Console's Performance report: your queries, your pages, clicks and impressions.
• Note your monthly visits and form requests from your analytics.
• Note calls and website clicks from your Business Profile's Performance report.
• Save it somewhere dated, and keep it. If your business is seasonal, keep the same months from last year.

List every address. Google suggests building the list from your sitemaps, analytics, server logs and content system. On a small site, your sitemap and the top pages in Search Console will catch nearly everything. Include images and PDFs that other sites link to.

Mark what earns its keep. Beside each address, note its clicks, whether other sites link to it, and whether it brings in customers. Those are the pages you don't touch without a good reason.

Back up the old site. Save a full copy or export before anything changes, and keep access to the old host until you're sure you won't need it.

Decide what stays

The safest URL is the one that doesn't change. If your new site can keep the same addresses, keep them. A new look at the same address is a much smaller event for a search engine than a new address.

Then go through your list, and give every page one of four answers.

That last row surprises people. Google's advice is that content you aren't moving should return a 404 or 410 error. It's better than sending everything to the home page.

Build the redirect map

A redirect map is a two-column list: every old address, and where it now goes. It's the most important document in the project, and you can make it in a spreadsheet.

Follow Google's rules when you write it.

• Use permanent redirects. A 301 or 308 tells Google to show the new address in results. A 302 tells it the old one is staying.
• Send each old page to its closest match. Don't point many unrelated pages at one page like the home page. Google says it can confuse people, and may treat it as a soft 404.
• Go straight to the final page. Avoid chains of one redirect leading to another.
• Include every version. Old addresses with and without www, and any http:// versions.

If your builder can't do server-side redirects, Google also treats an instant meta refresh as permanent, though it prefers 301s and 308s. On Shingle, redirects from an old site's addresses are added in Pages and use that method, with up to 24 on a site, so map the pages that bring in visitors first.

During the build

Keep what search engines read. A new design can quietly throw away the words that made a page rank.

• Page titles and descriptions. Carry them over, then improve them. Don't let a template replace them with "Home". Our search result preview helps.
• Main content. A page that ranks for "water heater replacement in Dayton" should still talk about that, in text. Moving words into images or removing them is the classic mistake.
• Headings. Keep them clear and meaningful.
• Internal links. Update them to the new addresses, so they don't run through redirects.
• Image descriptions. Carry over your alt text.
• Structured data. Keep your local business schema, or add it now, matching what's on the page.
• Mobile. Google indexes and ranks the mobile version, so check that it has the same content as desktop.
• Speed. Check it against Google's targets. Redesigns often add heavy images and video.
• Facts. Your name, phone, hours and prices should survive unchanged. If you use AI to rewrite the words, fact-check every line, and compare it against your old site and listing.

Keep the test site out of search. Protect it with a password, or use noindex. Google says the page mustn't be blocked by robots.txt if you use noindex, or it won't see the tag. Then put "remove the block" on your launch list, because a leftover noindex can take a new site out of search entirely.

If you're rebuilding with AI, tools can do a lot of this for you, and they can also lose what you meant to keep. Most write new sentences, so check your top pages still use the phrases they rank for. You still need the redirect map.

Launch day

Launch at a quiet time, early in the week if you can, and not right before a holiday or your busy season. Have someone on hand who can fix things.

1. Publish the new site and turn on the redirects at the same moment.
2. Remove any noindex or password from the test setup.
3. Check robots.txt isn't blocking the site.
4. Test the top 20 old addresses by hand. Each should land on the right page in one step.
5. Check that forms, booking and tap-to-call all work, and that a real message reaches you.
6. Inspect a few pages with URL Inspection, and request indexing for your most important ones.
7. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console, and remove the old one.
8. Update the website link on your Google Business Profile if your address changed.
9. Update other places that point to you: social profiles, directories, your email signature.

If you're changing domains

Moving to a new domain adds a few steps. Do these on top of the above.

• Verify both the old and new domains in Search Console.
• Set up a 301 from the old home page to the new one, and from your important pages too.
• Use the Change of Address tool. It's for moving between domains or subdomains, and isn't needed for moving pages within a site, or going from http to https.
• Keep the redirects as long as you can, and at least a year. So keep paying for the old domain, because when it lapses every old link breaks, and anyone can buy it.

Small and medium sites should move all at once. Google suggests doing that instead of moving one section at a time.

After launch

In the first week, look every day.

• Check Search Console's page indexing report for spikes in errors and 404s, and fix any that matter.
• Check your analytics is recording visits, and that your form requests are arriving.
• Run through the site on your phone as a customer would.
• Ask a few regulars to tell you if anything looks wrong.

Over the first month, look weekly. Traffic should fall on the old addresses and rise on the new ones. Warnings about redirecting addresses in an old sitemap are expected, and you can ignore them.

Around three months in, compare against your baseline, month for month. Look at clicks, your main search phrases and, above all, the calls and form requests. A site can lose visits it never needed and still bring in more customers.

What to do if traffic drops

A dip in the first few weeks is normal, and Google says so. A deep or lasting drop means something needs fixing. Work through these in order.

1. Is it blocked? Check for a leftover noindex, or a robots.txt rule. Inspect the page in Search Console.
2. Do the redirects work? Test the old addresses for your biggest pages, and look for chains or errors.
3. Which pages fell? Compare against your baseline, page by page. A few big losers usually explain most of it.
4. What changed on those pages? Compare with your backup. If words, headings or the title were cut, put them back.
5. Is the mobile version thinner? Read it on a phone.
6. Did you change your listing? Check your profile still points to the right address.

Give any fix a few weeks, because some changes take months to show. If you've checked all this and the numbers still lag, look at what's changed around you, since a seasonal dip or a new rival can look like a redesign problem.

The checklist on one page

For a new site's ongoing work, go on to the local SEO checklist.