October 25, 2026

A new website should bring more customers, not fewer. Yet many businesses lose a large part of their Google traffic after a relaunch because old addresses disappear and nobody notices. This checklist shows how to avoid that.

1. Make a list of all current URLs

Before anything changes, collect every address of your current website: pages, blog posts, images and PDFs. Your sitemap, Google Search Console and a crawler tool help you build a complete list.

2. Find your most valuable pages

Check in Google Search Console which pages bring the most visitors and which ones have links from other websites. These pages need the most care during the relaunch.

3. Plan 301 redirects for every changed address

If an address changes, set up a permanent 301 redirect from the old URL to the most similar new page. Never send everything to the homepage. Each redirect should lead directly to the new page, without chains of several redirects.

4. Keep the content that ranks

A new design is fine, but do not delete texts that rank well. Improve and update them instead. Keep page titles, headings and descriptions at least as relevant as before.

5. Test on a staging website first

Build and test the new website on a separate test address that search engines cannot index. Check forms, mobile view, loading speed and all redirects before going live.

6. Go live with a clear checklist

On launch day, remove the noindex setting from the test site, activate the redirects, submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and test the most important pages and forms again.

7. Monitor the first weeks closely

Watch for 404 errors, crawling problems and changes in traffic in Google Search Console. Small fluctuations are normal in the first weeks; fix every error quickly so they do not turn into lasting losses.

Planning a relaunch? See our website development service