Key takeaways
- Rankings are attached to URLs. If the address of a page changes and nothing points from the old one to the new one, Google treats the page as gone.
- The one document that decides a migration is the redirect map: every old address, the new address it goes to, nothing missing.
- Do not change the domain, the URLs and the design in the same week if you can avoid it. Each change on its own is easy to debug.
What "losing rankings" actually means
Google does not rank a website. It ranks pages, by address. A page that has collected links and visits over five years holds its position because of that history. Rebuild the site, give the page a new address, and the history stays with the old one. If the old address now returns "not found", the new page starts from zero.
The fix is well known and badly done surprisingly often: a permanent redirect (a 301) from every old address to the matching new one. Done completely, rankings transfer within weeks. Done partially, you lose exactly the pages you forgot.
Before the move: take inventory
- List every URL that exists. From the old site's sitemap, from Google Search Console (Pages and Performance reports), and from a crawl of the live site. The three lists never match. Merge them.
- Note which pages matter. Search Console shows which addresses bring visitors. Those are the ones that must not break. The rest should still redirect, but the attention goes here.
- Record the current state. Titles, descriptions, headings, the position for your main search terms. In three months you want to compare against something.
- Find the links from other sites. Search Console lists them. A page other sites link to needs a redirect even if you drop the content.
The redirect map
A spreadsheet with two columns: old address, new address. Every row is a decision.
- Page continues under a new address: redirect to it.
- Page is merged into another: redirect to the merged page.
- Page is dropped and has no equivalent: redirect to the closest parent, not to the home page. A hundred redirects to the home page tell Google the pages are gone, not moved.
- Images and PDFs that other sites link to: redirect those too.
Redirects live in the web server's configuration or in a redirect plugin. They are checked before launch on the staging site, and they stay in place for at least a year. Removing them after launch because "the old pages are gone now" is how rankings quietly disappear six months later.
What to keep, what you may change
Keep: page titles and meta descriptions that work, the heading structure, the content that ranks, internal links between pages, image file names and alt texts, the structured data.
Change with care: the URL structure (only with the map), the navigation (keep the important pages one click from the home page), the amount of text on a page (less text on a ranking page usually means a lower position).
Change freely: design, fonts, colours, layout, speed. A faster site with the same content and addresses tends to gain, not lose.
If the domain changes too
A new domain is a bigger step. On top of the redirect map, Google Search Console has a change-of-address tool that tells Google the whole site moved; use it. Keep the old domain registered and redirecting for as long as you can afford the CHF 15 a year, which in practice means forever. Update the address everywhere it is written: Google Business Profile, directories, social profiles, email signatures, printed material.
Launch day and after
- Verify the new site in Search Console and submit the new sitemap.
- Crawl the new site and check for addresses returning errors.
- Check the redirects from the inventory, all of them, with a tool, not by hand.
- Watch the Search Console coverage and performance reports weekly for the first two months. A dip in the first two weeks is normal; a dip that keeps going is a missing redirect or a dropped page.
- Keep the old site's backup for a year. When a question comes up about what a page used to say, you want the answer.
What a migration costs
My migrations start at CHF 2'900 and take about three weeks. Most of the time goes into the inventory and the redirect map, not the move itself. A migration that skips those two steps is cheaper and costs more.
FAQ
Will my rankings drop during a migration?
A small, short dip is common while Google recrawls. With complete redirects and unchanged content, positions normally recover within a few weeks. Without them, they do not.
Can I change the design and the URLs at the same time?
You can, and often you have to, because a rebuild changes both. The advice is to keep the URLs where possible and to have the redirect map ready before the design goes live, so that one variable is controlled.
Do I need to redirect every single old page?
Every page that has visits, links or a sensible equivalent, yes. Ancient pages with no traffic and no links can be allowed to disappear, but it costs nothing to redirect them to their section.
How long should redirects stay in place?
At least a year, and there is no good reason to remove them later. They cost nothing to keep.
Twenty minutes on the phone, a written quote within two working days.