Most traffic losses after a redesign are avoidable. They come from missing redirects, changed URL patterns and content quietly dropped in the rebuild. A migration plan catches all three before launch, not after.
Start a projectWhat you get
A new site ships, the old URLs return 404s, redirect chains loop, and the pages that earned the traffic never made it into the rebuild. Rankings fall within days and recovery takes months, if it happens at all.
We inventory every indexed URL before anything changes, map old to new one by one, validate the redirects on staging, then watch crawl and index behaviour daily through launch week until things settle.
A complete list of indexed URLs pulled from crawls, Search Console, analytics and log data, ranked by traffic and links so nothing valuable is dropped by accident.
One old URL to one new URL, no chains, no blanket redirects to the homepage. Every rule tested before it reaches production.
A check that headings, copy, internal links and schema survived the rebuild, because trimmed content is the second most common cause of post-launch drops.
Crawling the staging build to catch noindex tags, blocked robots rules, broken canonicals and render problems while they are still cheap to fix.
Live monitoring of status codes, crawl errors and indexation the moment DNS switches, with fixes applied the same day.
Weekly comparison of impressions, positions and landing pages against the pre-launch baseline until performance is stable or better.
We record current rankings, top landing pages, backlink targets and crawl behaviour so there is a factual reference to measure against later.
Old URLs are matched to new ones, gaps are flagged, and any page worth keeping that is missing from the new build gets added back.
Staging is crawled end to end, redirect rules are tested in bulk, and the launch checklist is signed off before the switch.
Daily checks through launch week, then weekly, catching 404 spikes, redirect loops and indexation dips while they are still small.
| Area | Typical approach | Our approach |
|---|---|---|
| Redirects | Bulk rules to category or homepage | One-to-one map, tested on staging |
| Timing | Reviewed after launch | Validated before DNS switches |
| Content | Assumed to carry over | Parity checked page by page |
| Monitoring | One report a month later | Daily through launch week |
Some short-term movement is normal while search engines recrawl and reprocess the new URLs. A planned migration usually recovers within a few weeks. An unplanned one can lose traffic permanently because the signals never transfer.
Yes. Domain moves, HTTP to HTTPS, subdomain to subfolder, platform changes and pure redesigns all follow the same discipline: inventory, map, validate, monitor.
Yes. We provide the redirect map, technical requirements and staging feedback, and your team implements. We can also implement directly on the platforms we build on.
Ideally as soon as the new sitemap or page structure exists. Two to four weeks before launch is comfortable. We can work faster, but late involvement means less time to catch problems on staging.
We run a recovery audit instead: find the broken redirects, missing pages and lost content, then rebuild the mapping retrospectively. Recovery is slower than prevention but usually possible.
No. Redirects transfer signals, but if the destination page has thinner content or a different intent, performance still drops. Content parity matters as much as the redirect rule.
Will I lose rankings when I migrate?
Some short-term movement is normal while search engines recrawl and reprocess the new URLs. A planned migration usually recovers within a few weeks. An unplanned one can lose traffic permanently because the signals never transfer.
Some short-term movement is normal while search engines recrawl and reprocess the new URLs. A planned migration usually recovers within a few weeks. An unplanned one can lose traffic permanently because the signals never transfer.
Yes. Domain moves, HTTP to HTTPS, subdomain to subfolder, platform changes and pure redesigns all follow the same discipline: inventory, map, validate, monitor.
Yes. We provide the redirect map, technical requirements and staging feedback, and your team implements. We can also implement directly on the platforms we build on.
Ideally as soon as the new sitemap or page structure exists. Two to four weeks before launch is comfortable. We can work faster, but late involvement means less time to catch problems on staging.
We run a recovery audit instead: find the broken redirects, missing pages and lost content, then rebuild the mapping retrospectively. Recovery is slower than prevention but usually possible.
No. Redirects transfer signals, but if the destination page has thinner content or a different intent, performance still drops. Content parity matters as much as the redirect rule.
Send us the current site and the new structure. We will tell you what is at risk and what the redirect map needs to cover.