Redesigning your website without losing Google rankings

A website redesign loses Google rankings when the pages Google already ranks disappear, move to a new address with no redirect, or lose the words that earned their position. Keep those pages, point every old address at its closest new page, and check it all on launch day, and most redesigns hold their rankings. The new design is rarely the problem. The move is.

This is how we run a redesign or a platform move so the search traffic you already have comes across with it. It is the same process we use for web design in Perth, with two relaunches of our own as worked examples.

Why redesigns lose rankings

Google ranks pages, not websites. A redesign that keeps every page it ranked, at an address Google can follow, usually keeps its positions. Traffic drops when one of these happens at launch:

• Old addresses stop working. The new site uses new page addresses and nobody redirected the old ones, so every link and every ranking pointing at them lands on an error page.
• The content that ranked is cut. A long service page becomes three lines and a photo. It looks cleaner, but it no longer answers the search it used to rank for.
• The staging site's settings go live. A "do not index" setting or a blocking robots file left on from the build tells Google to drop the site.
• Pages lose their internal links. A page that used to sit in the menu is now three clicks deep, so it looks less important.
• Tracking breaks. This one does not cost rankings, but it hides everything else. If the forms and analytics stop recording, you cannot see a drop until the phone goes quiet.

Step 1: list the pages that earn search traffic

Before any design work starts, pull every page that has earned clicks from Google in the last few months. Search Console has the list. These are the pages the redesign has to protect, and most sites have fewer of them than you would think.

When we relaunched Lupin Gold, our own Shopify brand, that list was 75 pages: every page that had earned clicks from Google in the previous 90 days. The day after the new store went live we checked all 75. None was broken by the relaunch, and Search Console showed no drop in the days that followed. The full story is in the Lupin Gold case study.

Step 2: map every old address to a new one

Every old page address worth keeping gets a permanent (301) redirect to the closest matching page on the new site. Closest matching means the page that answers the same question, not the homepage. Sending everything to the homepage is the most common shortcut, and Google treats most of those redirects as dead ends.

Three rules we hold to:

1. One hop. Old address to final page in a single redirect, never a chain through two or three.
2. Agreed before launch. The redirect map is worked out and signed off during the build, so launch day is a check, not a scramble.
3. Every address tested. Not a sample. Every one.

The Renovation Centre is the biggest one we have done. Their old WordPress site had about 2,100 product pages for a business whose real goal is a showroom visit. Each old product address now forwards to the collection page it belonged to, so an old link to a particular basin lands on basins, not on an error page. On launch day, 03/09/2026, we checked all 2,143 old addresses and every one reached a live page. More in the Renovation Centre case study.

It works at the small end too. In October 2026 we merged an article on our own site into our Google Ads page, because the two were competing for the same searches. The old article address now points at the page with a single 301 redirect, and nothing else on the site links through it.

Step 3: keep what earned the ranking

A redesign can change how a page looks without changing what it says. For the pages on your list, carry across the page title, the main heading, the core copy and the questions it answers. Improve them if they need it, but do not cut them to fit a layout. If a page has to change a lot, change it after launch, one page at a time, so you can see what each change does.

The same goes for structure. Pages that ranked should stay in the menu or close to it, and keep the links that pointed at them from other pages. Page structure, headings, metadata and schema are part of the build, not something to bolt on later, which is where technical SEO and the design work meet.

Step 4: check it on launch day

The first hour after a new site goes live is when most problems are cheapest to fix. Our launch day list:

• every old address on the redirect map, tested and landing on a live page
• no "do not index" setting and no blocking robots file left over from the build
• the new sitemap live and submitted in Search Console
• page titles, descriptions and canonical tags correct on the pages that ranked
• every form sending, and analytics and conversion tracking recording a real test enquiry
• the site loading quickly on a phone

Tracking is the one people forget. A rebuild is exactly when tags break without anyone noticing, so run the checks in our guide to checking GA4 and conversion tracking before you announce the new site.

Step 5: watch the first few weeks

Rankings can wobble for a few weeks while Google re-crawls the site, and that is normal. What is not normal is a steady slide on the pages from your list. Watch Search Console for pages that drop, addresses that return errors and redirects Google has not followed, and fix them as they show up.

After that, the site still needs looking after: updates, broken links, forms that stop sending. That is what website maintenance covers, and it is included in every SEO tier we run.

Changing platform at the same time

A redesign and a platform move often happen together, for example WordPress to Webflow or another store platform to Shopify. The process is the same, with more to bring across: products, reviews, form connections and tracking all have to move and be tested. Our advice is not to move platform because you dislike how the admin looks, only when the current one is blocking something the business needs. We cover that decision in Webflow, WordPress or Shopify.

What a redesign costs

Small business websites start from $3k, and every site is scoped and quoted in writing before we start. A redesign is priced the same way as a new build, plus the redirect map and the launch checks, which are part of the job, not an extra. The things that move the number are in our guide to what a website costs in Perth.

Quick answers

Will a website redesign hurt my SEO?

Not if the pages that earn search traffic keep their content and every old address redirects to its closest new page. Rankings can wobble for a few weeks while Google re-crawls, which is normal. Lasting drops come from broken addresses, cut content or a "do not index" setting left on from the build.

What is website migration SEO?

It is the work that carries your search traffic across when a site changes design, platform or domain: listing the pages that earn clicks, mapping each old address to a new one with a 301 redirect, keeping the content that ranked, and checking it all on launch day and in the weeks after.

Should old pages redirect to the homepage?

No. Redirect each old page to the new page that answers the same question. Google treats most redirects to the homepage as dead ends, so the ranking the old page had is lost.

How long do rankings take to settle after a redesign?

Usually a few weeks while Google re-crawls the site. If a page that used to rank is still sliding after that, check its redirect, its content and its internal links.

Can I redesign my website without changing the URLs?

Often, yes, and it is the safest option when the current addresses are sensible. Where addresses have to change, for example on a platform move, the redirect map does the same job.