How to Redesign a Website Without Losing SEO

These are the ten steps to follow to ensure that your SEO will not be affected by a website redesign.

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23 Comments

    • Alex says

      Hi Don

      It is not necessary to switch domain name…You need to follow this procedure when you do a design change (like changing the theme of your website) and your urls change. If your urls remain the same then you can skip the part with the 301 redirections but its good to follow the rest.

      Hope this helps
      Alex

  1. Spedicija says

    If someone redisign website and use 301 redirection and make mistake when redirecting,then he fall in google serch and then fix url-redirection,like old urls, will his page rank return in these urls?

    • Alex says

      Hi Spedicija

      It is difficult to say, depends on what kind of mistake you did the first time. Normally (and according to what Google says) they will take the last redirection into account so there is a good possibility to return to the previous positions.

      Hope this helps
      Alex

  2. Alon says

    Hi and thanks for this tut.
    As I am afraid to affect google rank, I will not chage URLs name and keep the
    same name of the inner pages as before.
    I will only change the design to be nicer and mobility (use another template).
    Is this way will NOT affect my Google rank?

    • Alex Chris says

      Hi Alon

      Changing only the theme will not affect your Google rankings provided that you keep the content and titles of the page the same.

      All the best
      Alex

  3. Yssa says

    Great article. Thank you!

    I have a question, do I need to check inbound links before doing a redesign? Basically I will migrate to WordPress with the same urls and content with a new design. Contents will only change for the homepage.

    • Alex Chris says

      Hi Yssa

      If your urls will remain the same after the migration then you don’t have to worry about inbound links.

      Thanks

  4. Jessica says

    Hi. I am looking at changing my homepage for a more responsive template. This means creating a new page and deleting the existing home page. Will this affect anything at all. I have a good ranking on Google without paying for advertising so I don’t want to make a big mistake.
    Many thanks for your time

    • Alex Chris says

      Hi Jessica

      You need to make sure that the content of your home page stays the same. The design can change but make sure that you keep the same content (as well as the page title and description).

      Thanks
      Alex

  5. raheel aquil says

    Hello Alex,

    I hope you are doing fine, is that a good idea to have 2 xlm sitemaps (one for the older site urls and one with new redesign urls) as new redesign website have new content and new urls and almost each old url is redirect by using 301.

    As per my discussions with my SEO and Web team personals they are suggesting not to use Google Fetch and Render because if google will get the new urls by using Fetch and Render the old urls ranking juice will not transfer into new url . (I don’t agree I suggested to use Fetch option).

    Best,
    Raheel

    • Alex Chris says

      Hi Raheel

      No, don’t use two XML sitemaps. You only need one XML Sitemap that will have all valid URLS, you want Google to index.

      You can request re-indexing of the site without worrying about losing your links.

      Hope this helps
      Alex

  6. colin steele says

    HI thanks for the article, it pretty much answered all my questions but one. Is it recommended to duplicate all blog posts. What would your advice be Not to bothered about loosing the comments.

  7. John Carr says

    Hi Alex – Very informative article. I recently changed my old site from WordPress to Drupal. I regret making the change. However, I`m busy building new content primarily using YouTube videos. Should I decide to switch back to WordPress, would I lose any of the good `juice` from Google?

    Would adding 301 redirects to each page pointing to new WP site help?

    BTW, the URL will remain the same; your response will be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks.

    • Alex Chris says

      Hi John

      If you did not change the URLS or Domain, then you don’t have to add any 301 redirections.

      You only need to add 301 redirections when you change either the domain or URL structure.

      Hope this helps
      Alex

  8. Anjali says

    Brilliant article. The information I have been searching precisely. It helped me a lot, thanks. Keep coming with more such informative article. Would love to follow them.

  9. Bahati Walker Icons says

    Hai Alex, you are a smart guy indeed i’m not a developer nor a designer but just following your guides has made me a pro. Thanks for the article so informative

  10. Eliana Bryson says

    Many people make a mistake of not backing up their data and then wrong redirections make the case even worse I recently saw that one brand put a 302 redirect instead of 301 and all their rankings fell sharply. I personally believe that the major mistake they made is to make the website live on Friday when there is a gap coming up in the way.

  11. Jawad says

    Hi Alex, I am now cool because I want to change my website redesign I changed everything but confusion how will its effect SEO . I read your article its a very helpful lot of doubts cleared.

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