Website Redesign SEO Checklist
Don't Lose Your Hard-Earned Rankings
A website redesign can make or break your organic traffic. This is the proven, step-by-step checklist that protects your SEO investment through every phase — from pre-redesign planning to post-launch monitoring. Miss these steps and you risk losing years of ranking progress overnight.
Quick Answer
The #1 rule of website redesigns: protect your SEO at every step. Before you change anything, benchmark your current metrics, crawl your entire site, and create a complete URL mapping spreadsheet. Implement 301 redirects for every changed URL. Preserve your top-performing content. Migrate all meta tags and schema markup. Test everything in staging. Monitor daily after launch. The single most damaging mistake is missing redirects — one forgotten redirect can erase years of ranking progress for that page.
Why This Checklist Can Save Your Business
Here's a scenario that plays out more often than you'd think: a business spends months redesigning their website. The new design looks incredible. They launch it. And within weeks, their organic traffic drops by 50%, 60%, sometimes 80%.
What happened? They changed URLs without redirects. They rewrote their best-performing pages. They forgot to migrate their meta tags. They blocked their new site in robots.txt and forgot to unblock it. They broke their internal linking structure. They removed schema markup. Pick one — or all of the above.
The worst part? Most of this damage is entirely preventable. That's what this checklist exists for. Every item on this list is a protection against a specific, known failure mode that destroys SEO during redesigns.
A well-executed redesign shouldn't just preserve your rankings — it should improve them. Better site speed, cleaner architecture, improved mobile experience, updated content, and modern structured data all create opportunities for ranking gains. The key is doing the migration correctly so you keep what you've earned while building on it.
This Is Not Hypothetical
Phase 1: Pre-Redesign Planning
The planning phase is the most important phase. Skip it and you're gambling with your organic traffic. Every minute invested in planning saves hours of post-launch firefighting. Here's everything you need to do before a single design mockup is created.
Benchmark Current SEO Metrics
Record everything before you change anything. Document your organic traffic levels, keyword rankings for target terms, domain authority, conversion rates, page-level traffic, and top-performing content. This data is your insurance policy — without it, you won't know if something went wrong after launch, and you won't be able to diagnose what broke.
Crawl Your Entire Existing Site
Use Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs) to crawl every page on your current site. Map every URL, status code, redirect chain, canonical tag, and meta tag. This becomes your migration reference document — the complete inventory of what exists today. You cannot plan redirects without knowing what you're redirecting from.
Document Your Top-Performing Pages
Identify the pages that drive the most organic traffic, accumulate the most backlinks, and generate the most conversions. These pages need special protection during migration. Their content should be preserved as closely as possible — significant rewrites of top-performing pages frequently cause ranking drops.
Create Your URL Mapping Spreadsheet
This is the single most important document in your entire redesign. Create a spreadsheet with every old URL in one column and its corresponding new URL in the next. Every page, every blog post, every resource — nothing left unmapped. This spreadsheet becomes your redirect plan and your migration verification checklist.
Plan All 301 Redirects
For every URL that changes, define a 301 permanent redirect from old to new. Critical rules: avoid redirect chains (old → intermediate → new), never use 302 temporary redirects for permanent moves, and redirect to the most relevant equivalent page — not blindly to the homepage. A redirect to the homepage tells Google the original page no longer exists in any form.
Conduct a Content Audit
Categorize every page as keep, update, merge, or remove. Thin or outdated content should be consolidated or improved — not carried over as-is. A redesign is the perfect opportunity to consolidate underperforming pages and strengthen your content architecture. But do it deliberately, with redirect plans for anything you remove or merge.
The URL Mapping Spreadsheet Is Everything
Phase 2: Design & UX
Design decisions directly impact SEO. A beautiful design that loads slowly, breaks on mobile, or shifts content around during loading will hurt your rankings. Build SEO into the design process from day one.
Design Mobile-First
Google uses mobile-first indexing. Your mobile design isn't an afterthought — it IS your ranking version. Ensure all content, links, and structured data are present on mobile.
Set Core Web Vitals Targets
Define targets: LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Design decisions like hero images, font loading, and animations directly affect these metrics. Set the targets before development starts.
Plan Navigation Structure
Create a clear, shallow site architecture. Important pages within 3 clicks from the homepage. Navigation must be crawlable — no JavaScript-only menus that search engines can't follow.
Meet Accessibility Standards (WCAG 2.1 AA)
Sufficient color contrast, keyboard navigation, proper heading hierarchy, alt text, and screen reader compatibility. Accessibility improves both UX and SEO — Google rewards sites that serve all users.
Phase 3: Development & Technical SEO
This is where your planning meets execution. Every technical SEO element must be implemented correctly during development — not patched after launch when the damage is already done.
Implement All 301 Redirects
Map every old URL to its new destination. Test each individually. Avoid chains longer than one hop. This is the most critical SEO migration step — get it right.
Generate New XML Sitemap
Create a sitemap reflecting the new URL structure. Remove old URLs, include all new pages. Ready to submit to Search Console on launch day.
Update robots.txt
Remove staging environment blocks. Ensure all important pages are crawlable. Verify CSS/JS files aren't blocked from Googlebot.
Implement Schema Markup
Add JSON-LD structured data on every template: Organization, Breadcrumb, Service, FAQ, Article. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test before launch.
Set Canonical Tags
Self-referencing canonical tags on all indexable pages. For paginated content, point canonicals to the preferred version.
Migrate All Meta Tags
Transfer title tags, meta descriptions, and Open Graph tags. Update anything referencing old branding or outdated information.
Rebuild Internal Linking
Descriptive anchor text. Related content linked together. No orphan pages. No broken internal links pointing to old URLs.
Enforce HTTPS Everywhere
SSL properly configured. All internal links using HTTPS. HTTP requests redirect to HTTPS. No mixed content warnings.
Optimize Page Speed in Code
Lazy loading images, minified CSS/JS, compression (gzip/Brotli), CDN, optimized critical rendering path. Measure with Lighthouse.
Phase 4: Content Migration
Content migration is where many redesigns silently fail. A page that ranks #3 can drop to page 5 if its content changes significantly during migration. Here's how to protect your content assets.
Preserve Top-Performing Content
Migrate highest-traffic pages first with the most care. Keep their content substantially the same. Significant rewrites of ranking content cause ranking drops. Improve the design and formatting, but don't rewrite what's already working.
Update Stale Content Intentionally
A redesign is the perfect time to refresh outdated statistics, examples, and references. But do it intentionally — planned improvements, not accidental changes.
Migrate Blog Posts with Full Metadata
Transfer blog posts with original publish dates, author information, categories, and all images. Update internal links within posts to point to new URLs.
Optimize and Migrate Images
Compress to modern formats (WebP, AVIF). Add descriptive alt text. Use responsive image markup. Ensure image URLs either stay the same or are redirected.
Don't Rewrite Ranking Content
Check Your Meta Tags Before & After Migration
Use our free Meta Tag Analyzer to audit your title tags and meta descriptions on both old and new sites.
Phase 5: Pre-Launch Testing
Never launch without thorough testing. Deploy to a staging environment, crawl it, break-test it, and validate everything. Every problem you find before launch is a problem that doesn't affect your rankings.
Test in Staging Environment
Deploy to a password-protected staging URL. Crawl with Screaming Frog. Block staging from search engines with robots.txt and noindex.
Run Full Broken Link Check
Scan every page for broken internal links, external links, and missing resources. Fix all 404s before going live.
Test on Multiple Mobile Devices
iOS Safari, Android Chrome, various screen sizes. Use real devices — emulators miss real-world issues.
Run Page Speed Tests
Test homepage, service pages, blog posts with PageSpeed Insights. All templates should score 90+ on mobile Lighthouse.
Validate All Schema Markup
Every template through Google Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator. Fix errors before launch.
Test Every Redirect
Verify each 301 works with a redirect checker. No chains, no loops, one hop to final destination.
Phase 6: Launch Day
Launch day is precision execution. Every element needs to go live simultaneously. No gaps, no delays, no “we'll fix that tomorrow.”
Deploy All Redirects Simultaneously
Push all redirects live at the same time as the new site. Any gap between old URLs stopping and redirects activating creates 404 errors that damage SEO.
Submit New XML Sitemap Immediately
Upload to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools right after launch. This tells search engines about your new URL structure.
Request Indexing for Critical Pages
Use Search Console's URL Inspection to request indexing for homepage, top landing pages, and significantly changed URLs.
Monitor Search Console in Real Time
Watch Coverage report, Sitemaps report, and URL Inspection for errors. Address crawl errors within hours, not days.
Test All Critical User Journeys
Walk through conversion paths: contact forms, checkout, lead magnets, phone clicks. Both desktop and mobile. Broken conversions are worse than broken rankings.
Phase 7: Post-Launch Monitoring
The first two weeks after launch are critical. Monitor daily, catch problems fast, and fix them immediately. A small issue caught on day 2 causes minimal damage. The same issue discovered on week 4 may have caused permanent ranking loss.
Monitor Organic Traffic Daily (First 2 Weeks)
Compare against pre-redesign benchmarks. A 10-20% dip is normal during re-indexing. Drops larger than 30% signal a problem needing immediate investigation — likely missing redirects, deindexed pages, or content changes on key pages.
Check for 404 Errors Daily
Review Search Console's Pages report and server logs for new 404s. Every new 404 indicates a missing redirect that needs immediate fixing.
Verify All Redirects One Week Post-Launch
Re-crawl your entire old URL list to confirm every redirect resolves correctly. Check for 404s, 500s, wrong destinations, and accidental chains.
Monitor Keyword Rankings Daily (First Month)
Some fluctuation is expected. Sustained drops for important keywords indicate content changes, lost redirects, or technical issues that need diagnosis.
Monitor Core Web Vitals Weekly
Check in Search Console and PageSpeed Insights. Real-user data takes 28 days to accumulate — watch for regressions as real traffic hits the new site.
Set Up Alerts
301 Redirect Deep Dive
301 redirects are the backbone of every successful website migration. They tell search engines that a page has permanently moved and to transfer its ranking signals to the new location. Get this right and you preserve your SEO investment. Get it wrong and you can lose years of progress.
Always Use 301 (Permanent), Not 302 (Temporary)
302 redirects tell Google the move is temporary — it keeps the old URL in its index. 301 redirects transfer link equity and rankings to the new URL. For a redesign, always use 301.
Avoid Redirect Chains
A chain (A→B→C) loses link equity at each hop and slows crawling. Every old URL should reach its final destination in one hop maximum. If previous redirects exist, update them to point directly to the new URL.
Redirect to Equivalent Content
Redirect each old page to the most relevant equivalent page on the new site. Don't blindly redirect everything to the homepage — Google treats homepage redirects as soft 404s for the original content.
Keep Redirects Permanently
Google has confirmed that removing redirects too soon causes ranking losses. The server overhead is negligible. Keep your 301 redirects active indefinitely — treat them as permanent infrastructure.
Common Website Redesign Mistakes
Missing or Incomplete Redirects
The #1 cause of post-redesign traffic loss. Every changed URL needs a 301 redirect. Period. One missing redirect on a high-traffic page can cost you thousands of visitors per month.
Rewriting Top-Performing Content
If a page ranks well, its content is working. Changing it during a redesign is adding unnecessary risk on top of the migration itself. Improve the design, keep the content.
Launching Without Testing
Skipping the staging environment means every bug goes live. Test on staging, crawl it, check every redirect, validate every schema — then launch.
No URL Mapping Document
Flying blind during migration. Without a complete URL map, you'll miss redirects, break links, and lose pages that drive your business.
Forgetting to Update robots.txt
Leaving staging blocks in your robots.txt after launch tells Google not to crawl your new site. One line of text can deindex everything.
Not Monitoring After Launch
Launching and walking away means problems compound for days or weeks before you notice. Monitor daily for the first two weeks minimum.
Redirecting Everything to Homepage
Mass-redirecting old pages to the homepage tells Google those pages no longer exist. Each old page should redirect to its most relevant equivalent on the new site.
Your Interactive Redesign Checklist
Track your progress through every phase of your website redesign. Check off items as you complete them.
Website Redesign SEO Checklist
0/21 doneFrequently Asked Questions
Common questions about website redesigns, SEO migration, and protecting your rankings.
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