A website redesign changes more than the appearance of your pages. Navigation, URLs, headings, content and technical settings may change at the same time. If a useful page disappears or its address changes without a redirect, people following an old search result or bookmark may no longer reach it.
Plan the migration before designing the final navigation. The aim is to preserve useful information and give both visitors and search engines clear destinations.
Inventory the current website
List existing URLs and identify what each page does. Review Search Console data, available analytics and enquiry records to find pages that attract relevant visitors or support sales conversations. Do not delete a page solely because it is missing from the proposed visual layout.
Record important titles, descriptions, headings, images and internal links. Save copies of existing content so the migration can be checked against the original site.
Decide which URLs will stay
Keep an existing address when the purpose and content remain substantially the same. If the page moves, map its old URL to the most relevant new page. Avoid sending every removed page to the homepage; that destination often does not answer the visitor's original question.
For content that genuinely has no replacement, serve an appropriate not-found response. Document the decision so the launch team does not create accidental redirects later.
Test the new pages before launch
Check that each intended public page has a meaningful title, description, canonical URL and crawlable internal links. For JavaScript websites, inspect the HTML response as well as the rendered browser view. Important page content should not depend on a user clicking a control or waiting for a decorative loader.
Test mobile navigation, images and enquiry forms. Confirm that legal pages and contact information remain reachable. Make sure testing settings such as site-wide noindex directives do not carry over to production.
Prepare and test redirects
Implement permanent redirects for genuine URL moves using your hosting platform. Test each source and destination. Look for loops, long chains, missing pages and unexpected redirects between domain variants.
Fragment addresses such as a hash-based page URL are handled in the browser and require particular care: a fragment is not sent to the server. If an old application used them, preserve a client-side migration route while introducing proper page URLs.
Update discovery and measurement
Generate a sitemap containing the canonical URLs you want indexed. Exclude private, duplicate and noindex pages. Use accurate modification dates rather than changing every date automatically at each deployment.
Check Search Console verification after the move and submit the sitemap. Inspect the homepage, key service pages and important articles. A sitemap submission helps discovery; it does not guarantee that each URL will be indexed.
Monitor after launch
Compare relevant pages and queries with the previous baseline. Check indexing reports, broken links, form delivery and qualified enquiries. Keep a record of the launch date and significant follow-up changes so you can interpret fluctuations.
Allow for the fact that a redesign or migration can change how search engines evaluate the website. No checklist can guarantee unchanged rankings, but careful mapping and testing reduce avoidable failures.
Explore Rostra's website development services or contact our team to discuss a redesign. Our website budgeting guide explains what to include in the project brief.