A redesign can accidentally remove pages and links that customers and search engines already use.
What to Check
- Inventory indexed pages before design work
- Map old URLs to retained or replacement pages
- Verify canonicals, links, and redirects before launch
What the Results Mean
Inventory the current URLs before changing templates. Map retained and replacement pages, then verify links, canonicals, and necessary redirects before launch.
Inventory Before Changing URLs
List important existing pages, their search purpose, incoming links, and the content worth retaining. Map each old URL to its new equivalent before launch. Do not send every old page to the homepage or remove useful answers simply to shorten the menu.
Check the New Site as a Migration
Review titles, headings, internal links, canonical URLs, redirects, robots instructions, and sitemap entries. Test forms and mobile layouts alongside technical checks. Monitor the launched pages for crawl errors and unexpected traffic changes so a missing redirect or blocked page can be corrected quickly.
Will Rankings Remain Identical?
No one can promise that. Preserving useful pages and mapping changes carefully reduces avoidable losses.