How to move a website without losing Google rankings (redirects explained)

Every website migration story that ends badly goes roughly the same way. A business moves to a new platform or a new design, launches on a Friday, and a few weeks later notices the phone has gone quiet. Search traffic has fallen off a cliff because Google is sending people to pages that no longer exist.

It does not have to happen. Google publishes clear guidance on site moves, and the core of it is simple: tell Google exactly where every old page has gone. This guide explains website migration and SEO for small businesses, including what redirects are and how to use them, whether you are changing design, platform, URL structure or domain.

What counts as a migration

Redirects explained

A redirect is an instruction on the server that says “the page you asked for now lives at this other address”. Browsers follow it instantly, so visitors land on the right page, and search engines follow it too, updating their index over time.

A 301 redirect is permanent. It tells Google the old URL has moved for good and the new URL should take its place in search results. A 302 redirect is temporary, meaning “this has moved for now, but keep the old one”. Google’s documentation says it treats permanent redirects as a strong signal that the target should be shown in results. For a migration, you almost always want 301 or 308 permanent redirects, set up on the server rather than with JavaScript or a “this page has moved” message.

Two things to avoid: redirect chains, where A points to B which points to C, and redirecting everything to the homepage. Chains slow things down and can be dropped along the way. Blanket homepage redirects are treated much like a missing page, because the homepage is not a real replacement for a specific service page.

Step 1: list every old URL

Before anything changes, gather every address the old site uses. Combine these sources, because each one misses something:

• The old XML sitemap.
• A crawl of the old site using a crawling tool.
• Google Search Console’s page indexing and performance reports, exported.
• Your analytics, for pages that get visits.
• Pages other websites link to, from Search Console’s links report.
• Old PDFs, images and campaign landing pages that might not be linked from the menu.

Step 2: map old to new

Put every old URL in a spreadsheet with a column for its new home. Each old page should go to the most relevant equivalent: the old boiler servicing page to the new boiler servicing page, not to a general services page. If two old pages are merging into one, both redirect to the new page. If a page is genuinely gone with no equivalent, redirect to the closest relevant section or let it return a 404 or 410 status, which is honest and fine for truly obsolete content.

Pay extra attention to the pages that bring the most search traffic and have the most links. Those carry most of your ranking value, and a mistake on them costs the most.

Step 3: keep what Google valued

• Keep the substance of pages that rank. A beautiful new page with half the words and none of the detail often ranks worse.
• Carry over page titles and headings for key pages, improving rather than replacing them.
• Keep internal links between related pages.
• Keep structured data such as business details and reviews markup where it was accurate.
• Keep image files, or redirect image URLs that bring traffic from image search.

Step 4: launch and tell Google

• Remove any staging “noindex” tags or robots.txt blocks from the new site.
• Switch on the redirects at the same moment the new site goes live.
• Test a sample of old URLs, including all your top pages, and check each lands on the right new page with a single hop.
• Submit the new XML sitemap in Google Search Console.
• For a domain change: verify both old and new domains in Search Console and use the Change of Address tool.
• Update your Google Business Profile, social profiles, directory listings and email signatures with the new addresses.
• Ask sites that link to you often, such as trade bodies or suppliers, to update their links.

Step 5: monitor and fix

For the first few weeks, check Search Console regularly. Look for a rise in “Not found (404)” pages, redirect errors and important pages dropping out of the index. Each 404 for a URL that used to matter is a missing redirect you can add.

Expect some fluctuation. Google says a medium-sized site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and larger sites longer. If traffic has not recovered after a couple of months, compare old and new versions of the pages that lost the most, because content changes are usually the cause.

Keep the redirects. Google advises keeping them for at least a year, and many links elsewhere on the web will never be updated, so leaving them in place permanently is the safe choice. For a domain change, keep renewing the old domain for the same reason.

Migration mistakes that cost rankings

When Nerdsharks rebuilds a site, the old URLs are mapped and the redirects agreed before launch. If you are about to move your site with someone else, share this checklist with them and ask to see the redirect map.

• No redirects at all, because nobody thought about it.
• Redirecting every old page to the homepage.
• Leaving the “discourage search engines” setting on after launch.
• Letting the old domain expire, breaking every redirect and old link.
• Deleting pages with good rankings because they did not fit the new design.
• Using temporary 302 redirects where permanent ones were needed.
• Launching without testing forms and tracking on the new site.