A new website without losing your Google traffic

When launching a new website, URLs, structure, or copy almost always change. Without a plan, you risk losing rankings built up over years — and you'll only notice two weeks later, when enquiries dry up.

With a plan, the opposite happens: a new site that is faster and better structured often generates more traffic than the old one.

Create a complete list of all existing URLs, along with your current rankings and traffic per page. Without this baseline, you won't know what you've lost, let alone how to recover it.

Then decide where each old URL should point. If a page is being removed, redirect it to the most relevant new page — not simply to the homepage by default.

A common mistake: a new design with half the copy because it looks cleaner. Google reads that copy; halving it often means losing rankings.

If you want to trim it down, do so after the migration and page by page, so you can measure the impact.

Check that the new site hasn't accidentally been blocked from Google (it happens often, as staging environments are set that way). Submit the new sitemap and run spot checks to ensure old URLs redirect properly.

Check Search Console daily for errors and indexation issues. A brief dip of one to three weeks is normal; if traffic keeps dropping, something is wrong with your redirects or indexation.

Also check your forms and analytics tracking: migrations often break them, leaving you in the dark about how many enquiries you're missing.

No redirects. Redirecting everything to the homepage. New site still set to 'noindex'. Far less copy than before. A slow new site. Analytics tracking not set back up.

All six can be avoided with a checklist. I stick to one for every launch.