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Redesigning Your Website Without Losing SEO Rankings
The article argues that website redesigns can damage search rankings when URLs, content, internal links or technical settings change without a plan. It recommends treating SEO checks as part of the redesign brief, because lost visibility can also mean fewer enquiries and leads.
Before work begins, businesses should crawl the existing site, record page performance and identify high-value pages. The article advises keeping strong pages’ URLs and useful content, mapping any changed URLs to permanent redirects, updating canonical tags and the sitemap, and monitoring Google Search Console after launch. It cites keyword movements for PMax Motor as examples of useful baselines, while clarifying they are not results from a documented redesign.
In short
- Redesign changes can cause rankings and enquiries to fall.
- Record current URLs and search performance before work begins.
- Keep valuable content and redirect old URLs to close matches.
Explained simply
A website redesign changes how a business’s site looks or works, and may also change its pages and web addresses. Search engines such as Google use page content, links and technical signals to decide which results to show.
If those elements change without care, pages may become harder to find in search results. That can mean fewer visitors and fewer potential customers reaching the business.
Before a redesign, businesses can note which pages already attract visitors and keep useful content and web addresses where possible. When a page must move, a permanent redirect can guide visitors and search engines to its new address.