How long should I keep 301 redirects after a website redesign?

Google says to keep redirects generally for at least one year so it can transfer signals to the new URLs, and notes that keeping them indefinitely is reasonable from a user's perspective. If your old URLs are linked from other sites, email campaigns or printed material, there is little reason to remove them at all.

Do I need Search Console's Change of Address tool?

Only when the site moves from one domain or subdomain to another. Google's help page says not to use it for http to https, www to non-www, or moving only some pages inside the same site. Even when it applies, it comes after the redirects are in place, not instead of them.

Can I redirect all old pages to the new homepage?

Avoid it. Google advises against sending many old URLs to an unrelated page such as the homepage. Each old URL should reach its closest equivalent. If several old pages were merged into one, they can point to that single new page. Retired pages with no equivalent are better left to return a proper not-found response.

Should I redesign and change the domain at the same time?

If you can avoid it, do not. Google's guidance says to change one thing at a time, for instance the domain first and the layout later. Doing both together is possible, but any drop becomes harder to explain, so it needs a clearer baseline, more monitoring and a rollback plan agreed beforehand.

What should I test on a staging site before launch?

Test every page type, images, downloads, forms and integrations, then submit real enquiries and confirm they reach the CRM with source data intact. Keep the staging site out of search results with noindex while testing, and make removing that block part of the launch checklist so it is not forgotten.

Who should own the redirect map?

The marketing director signs off on what each old page should become, because it is a business decision about what to keep. Developers implement and test the redirects. The agency or SEO specialist checks the mapping against content. One named person should confirm after launch that the map works.

What metrics should I watch in the first weeks after launch?

Watch enquiries and form submissions first, since they are the business outcome. Then check Search Console for errors and coverage, server logs for crawl behaviour, and analytics for traffic to your most important pages. Compare each against the figures you recorded before launch rather than against general expectations.

Websites & E-commerce

Website Redesign Checklist: Protect Search Visibility and Leads

Published November 7, 2026

A website redesign checklist protects search visibility and lead flow by settling three things before launch: which pages and URLs stay, where every old URL redirects, and which forms, tracking and CRM connections must keep working. Then you monitor after launch. Google says rankings may fluctuate during a move and should settle over time; nothing is guaranteed.

A redesign usually starts as a design project and ends as a search and sales problem. The new site looks better, then enquiries drop because a form stopped sending, a page that brought in leads disappeared, or the old URLs lead nowhere. The checklist below treats the redesign as a business change with a visibility risk and a lead risk, and it says who owns each decision.

What should a website redesign checklist cover?

A website redesign checklist should cover four things: which pages and URLs exist today and what each one earns, where every old URL will go, which forms, tracking and CRM connections must keep working, and how you will watch the results after launch. Design quality matters, but these four decide whether the business loses ground.

Start from an inventory, not from mood boards. List every indexable page with its search traffic, its inbound links and the enquiries it produces. Pages that earn nothing can be merged or retired on purpose. Pages that bring qualified enquiries get protected, whatever the new design looks like.

Google separates two situations. If URLs change, its guidance on site moves with URL changes applies: build and test the new site, map each old URL to its new counterpart, set up server-side redirects and monitor old and new URLs in Search Console, server logs and analytics. If the URLs stay the same and only hosting changes, a different page, on moves without URL changes, applies, and it is limited to hosting infrastructure. A redesign with a new look and the same addresses still changes templates, copy and internal links, so test it as carefully as a move.

Who decides what in a redesign?

The marketing director owns the commercial decisions: which pages and offers matter, what counts as a lead, what the launch must not break and when it may go live. Developers own redirects, performance, tracking implementation and integrations. The agency owns the design, the content structure and the coordination between the two. Nobody should own the redirect map alone, because it needs all three views.

A workable split looks like this:

Decision	Decides	Executes
Which pages are kept, merged or retired	Marketing director, with SEO input	Agency (content), developers
URL structure and redirect map	Marketing director signs off, developers confirm feasibility	Developers
What counts as a lead and which events are tracked	Marketing director, with sales	Developers, analytics owner
Forms and CRM integration	Marketing director and sales lead	Developers
Launch date and rollback plan	Marketing director	Developers, agency
Design and content hierarchy	Agency proposes, marketing director approves	Agency

The point of the table is accountability. When a redirect is missing or a form is silent after launch, someone must have been named in advance as the person who checks it.

What is the redesign checklist before, during and after launch?

The checklist runs in three stages: before launch you inventory, map and test; on launch day you switch, verify and monitor; after launch you watch search and lead data and fix what breaks. The numbered list below follows that order.

Before: inventory every page. Export the indexable URLs with traffic, links and conversions, so you know what you are protecting.
Before: decide what stays. Mark each page as keep, merge or retire. Do not delete pages that bring enquiries just to simplify the structure.
Before: map old URLs to new ones. Every old URL gets one direct destination with matching content. Google advises against sending many old URLs to an unrelated page such as the new homepage, and says consolidated content can go to a single new page (Google Search Central).
Before: change one thing at a time where you can. Google advises changing one thing at a time, for example the domain first and the layout afterwards (source). If the brief asks for new domain, new structure and new design together, say plainly that the risk is higher and plan more monitoring.
Before: build and test the new site in a closed environment. Keep it out of the index while testing, and check pages, images, forms and downloads. Google's hosting guidance makes the same point about testing forms and downloads and keeping a temporary environment noindex (source).
Before: test every form, event and integration. Submit real test enquiries and confirm they arrive in the CRM or inbox with the right source data.
Before: choose the launch window. Google recommends moving during a low-traffic period when possible (source).
During: remove the test blocks. Take off the noindex tags and robots.txt rules that protected the staging site, a classic launch-day error.
During: switch with server-side redirects. Google recommends permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308) where technically possible and says permanent redirects do not cause a loss of PageRank (source). Redirect straight to the final destination and avoid long chains.
During: submit the new sitemap. List the new URLs in a sitemap and submit it in Search Console. Google says the old sitemap can be removed once the new one is submitted; for monitoring it also suggests a second sitemap listing the old URLs so you can watch them drop out of the index, and says Search Console warnings about those redirecting URLs can be ignored (source).
During: repeat the form and tracking tests on the live site. Staging success proves nothing about production.
After: monitor old and new URLs. Watch Search Console, server logs and analytics, as Google advises (source), and compare against the baseline you took before launch.
After: fix 404s, broken forms and lost pages quickly. Check the pages that carried the most enquiries first.
After: keep the redirects. Google says to keep them generally at least one year, and that keeping them indefinitely is also reasonable from a user's perspective (source).

If the domain changes, one more step applies: the Search Console Change of Address tool. Google's help page says to use it after you have moved and redirected the site, and not for moves between http and https, www and non-www, or moves of only some pages within the same site.

How do you keep leads coming in during a redesign?

You keep leads coming in by treating every form, tracking event and CRM connection as a feature to be tested before launch, not as part of the template. Search visibility can recover over time, but a silent contact form loses enquiries on the day it breaks, and nobody notices until sales asks where the leads went.

Before launch, write down every lead path: contact forms, quote requests, newsletter sign-ups, downloads, phone and email links, booking widgets and chat. For each one, note where the data goes (inbox, CRM, marketing automation) and which tracking event fires. Then compare the list with the new build.

Three habits prevent most problems. Keep the same event names where you can, so reports before and after launch remain comparable. Test with real submissions that travel the whole way into the CRM, including source and campaign fields. And agree who checks lead volume daily during the first weeks, with a threshold for raising the alarm. Paid campaigns and email links also point to old landing pages, so update or redirect them before launch.

For stores, the same logic applies to product pages, where conversion depends on content and structure that a redesign can easily flatten. Our piece on ecommerce product page best practices covers what to carry over.

How long does it take for search results to settle after a redesign?

Nobody can give a reliable number, and any agency that promises a date for recovered rankings is guessing. Google states that rankings may fluctuate during a move and should settle over time, and that for medium-sized sites it can take a few weeks or more for new URLs to appear in place of the old ones, longer for larger sites (Google Search Central).

The same page explains why: Googlebot has to visit the old and new URLs at least once before the move is complete, so a bigger site needs more time. For a domain change, Google's Change of Address help says the effects continue for 180 days after the migration starts, advises keeping redirects for at least that long and the old domain registered for at least a year.

What you can control is the quality of the redirect map, the speed at which you fix errors and the baseline you compare against. What you cannot control is the schedule on which Google processes the change, and no one can promise a ranking outcome.

When is a full redesign the wrong choice?

A full redesign is the wrong choice when the problem is narrower than the site. If the site ranks and converts acceptably but one template, one page type or the mobile experience underperforms, fixing that part costs less and carries far less risk than rebuilding everything.

Be suspicious of a redesign requested because the site feels old, because a new executive dislikes it or because a competitor relaunched. Those are reasons to look again, not evidence that a rebuild will improve enquiries. A redesign is more justified when the platform blocks the business: the CMS cannot support what sales needs, integrations are impossible, the structure cannot grow or the site cannot be maintained safely.

Iterative improvement works better in these cases:

Search traffic and enquiries are healthy and the complaint is mostly visual.
A few key pages convert poorly. Test and rewrite those first.
The site is slow or not mobile-friendly. Fix performance before changing identity.
The team has no capacity to monitor after launch. A rebuild without monitoring is the riskiest version.
The brand itself is about to change. Settle the brand decision first, then build the site once.

A staged approach also keeps the URLs stable, which removes the largest search risk. You can replace templates one at a time, measure each change and stop if a step hurts results.

What should you do next?

Start with the inventory and the lead-path list, then decide with developers and the agency who owns each item on the checklist. If the work involves web design, development, e-commerce or integrations with CRM and management software, our page on websites, e-commerce and digital platforms describes how BVG approaches it, and the Journal covers related topics. If you want to talk through a redesign before committing, start a conversation.

This article describes Google's published guidance as of 2026 and is general information, and makes no promise about any search result.

Frequently asked questions

How long should I keep 301 redirects after a website redesign?: Google says to keep redirects generally for at least one year so it can transfer signals to the new URLs, and notes that keeping them indefinitely is reasonable from a user's perspective. If your old URLs are linked from other sites, email campaigns or printed material, there is little reason to remove them at all.
Do I need Search Console's Change of Address tool?: Only when the site moves from one domain or subdomain to another. Google's help page says not to use it for http to https, www to non-www, or moving only some pages inside the same site. Even when it applies, it comes after the redirects are in place, not instead of them.
Can I redirect all old pages to the new homepage?: Avoid it. Google advises against sending many old URLs to an unrelated page such as the homepage. Each old URL should reach its closest equivalent. If several old pages were merged into one, they can point to that single new page. Retired pages with no equivalent are better left to return a proper not-found response.
Should I redesign and change the domain at the same time?: If you can avoid it, do not. Google's guidance says to change one thing at a time, for instance the domain first and the layout later. Doing both together is possible, but any drop becomes harder to explain, so it needs a clearer baseline, more monitoring and a rollback plan agreed beforehand.
What should I test on a staging site before launch?: Test every page type, images, downloads, forms and integrations, then submit real enquiries and confirm they reach the CRM with source data intact. Keep the staging site out of search results with noindex while testing, and make removing that block part of the launch checklist so it is not forgotten.
Who should own the redirect map?: The marketing director signs off on what each old page should become, because it is a business decision about what to keep. Developers implement and test the redirects. The agency or SEO specialist checks the mapping against content. One named person should confirm after launch that the map works.
What metrics should I watch in the first weeks after launch?: Watch enquiries and form submissions first, since they are the business outcome. Then check Search Console for errors and coverage, server logs for crawl behaviour, and analytics for traffic to your most important pages. Compare each against the figures you recorded before launch rather than against general expectations.