URLs changed without 301 redirects
Changing your page addresses without setting up 301 redirects sends Google and your visitors to 404 errors. Your earned rankings collapse and the authority your old URLs built up goes up in smoke.
Website redesign · SEO migration
Redesign your site without losing your rankings
Switching websites is scary, and rightly so: a poorly prepared redesign can destroy years of rankings in a matter of days. Run well, on the other hand, it improves your SEO. Here is the method to migrate safely, keep your Google rankings and protect your traffic. Starting from scratch? Discover our SEO-first web design.
The risk of a redesign
Why a redesign can sink your rankings
Redesigning your site often means changing everything at once: the URLs, the page structure, the content, the design and sometimes the CMS. Yet Google has spent months, sometimes years, understanding your old site and ranking it for your keywords. Every uncontrolled change scrambles those bearings and threatens your rankings.
The dreaded scenario is well known: the new site goes live, and in the days that follow rankings tumble, organic traffic collapses and the phone stops ringing. That is exactly what leads to a site that no longer shows up on Google overnight.
The good news: this drop is anything but inevitable. It almost always comes from avoidable mistakes. With a mapped migration and real attention to technical SEO, a redesign goes off without damage and even becomes a chance to gain rankings.
The pitfalls to know
The mistakes that kill rankings during a redesign
Six classic blunders turn a redesign into lost traffic. Spotting them already protects your SEO.
Content deleted or thinned out
A cleaner redesign that trims the text on your pages strips Google of the keywords and context that ranked you. Less relevant content mechanically means less organic traffic.
Lost title, heading and meta tags
If the new site forgets to carry over your title tags, your headings and your optimised meta descriptions, Google loses the signals that describe your pages. Losing these tags is one of the most common causes of a post-redesign drop.
Noindex left on after go-live
During development, the staging site is often blocked from indexing. Forgetting to remove the noindex tag or the robots.txt block after go-live makes your new site invisible on Google.
Broken internal structure and linking
A new menu, reshuffled categories and deleted internal links scramble how authority flows through your site. A broken internal structure dilutes link equity and pushes your most strategic pages down.
Degraded performance, a slower site
A heavier design, unoptimised images or badly coded templates slow down loading. Yet speed is a ranking factor: a slower site after a redesign penalises both experience and rankings.
The method
Our secure SEO migration method in 5 steps
From the audit of the existing site to post-launch tracking: a process that preserves every ranking signal.
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01
Audit of the existing site and URL mapping
Before the redesignWe draw up a full inventory of your current site: a list of every URL, your best-ranking pages, the keywords that drive traffic and the backlinks you have earned. This map is the foundation that protects your rankings during the migration.
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02
301 redirect plan
PreparationEvery old URL is matched to its new address through a permanent 301 redirect. This redirect plan transfers authority and rankings to the new site, page by page, leaving no 404s behind.
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03
Preserving content and tags
DesignWe carry over and enrich the content that performed, keeping title tags, headings, meta descriptions and structured data. The new site thereby keeps every SEO signal that ranked you.
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04
Technical QA before go-live
Pre-launchBefore publishing, we check redirects, tags, speed, the mobile version, the sitemap and above all the absence of noindex. This QA prevents the invisible errors that sabotage a redesign at switchover.
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05
Post-launch tracking: indexing and rankings
After go-liveOnce live, we monitor indexing in Search Console, 404 errors, rankings and traffic. Any gap is fixed fast, before it turns into a lasting loss of visibility.
Redesign and growth
Turn your redesign into a ranking gain
A redesign is not only a risk to neutralise: run well, it is one of the most powerful levers for lifting your SEO. By starting from a healthy technical base, you clear in one move the debts your old site accumulated: speed, URL structure, tags, structured data and internal linking.
At TroisSix, we approach every redesign as a documented SEO migration, never as a simple change of design. That is why our SEO-first web design builds in URL mapping, the 301 redirect plan and the preservation of high-performing content from the very start.
The result is a new site that is faster, better structured and more complete, one that keeps the authority it earned while opening fresh room to grow. The redesign stops being a source of dread and becomes a profitable investment in your visibility.
Your questions answered
FAQ: redesign and rankings
Does a redesign make you lose your rankings?
Not if it is prepared. A poorly run redesign (URLs changed without redirects, content and tags lost, noindex left on) causes a sometimes brutal drop in traffic. But a mapped migration, with 301 redirects and preserved content, keeps your rankings and can even improve your SEO.
What are 301 redirects and why are they vital?
A 301 redirect tells Google and browsers that a page has permanently changed address. It transfers the authority and rankings of the old URL to the new one, and avoids 404 errors. Without a complete 301 redirect plan, you lose the years of rankings your old pages accumulated.
Should you keep the same URLs?
Whenever possible, keeping your existing URLs is the safest option: no redirect is needed and no signal is lost. If the new structure forces you to change them, every old URL must be 301-redirected to its most relevant equivalent.
How long does Google take to reindex after a redesign?
It ranges from a few days to several weeks depending on the size of the site and how often Google crawls it. Slight ranking fluctuations are normal while Google explores and reclassifies the new site. An up-to-date sitemap and an indexing request in Search Console speed up the process.
How do you check that nothing broke?
We check redirects (no 404 on the old URLs), the presence of title and heading tags, the absence of noindex, the sitemap, speed and indexing in Search Console. Tracking rankings and traffic in the following weeks helps you spot and fix any anomaly before it weighs on your SEO.
Can a redesign improve your SEO?
Yes, and that is exactly the point of a well-planned redesign. By fixing the structure, speeding up the site, enriching content and strengthening internal linking, a controlled migration often lifts rankings. The redesign then becomes a growth lever rather than a risk.
Secure your redesign before it is too late
We audit your current site and your redesign project, then hand you the migration plan to keep your rankings and your traffic, no obligation