Redirects when changing a website: keeping traffic and rankings

Step 1: inventory

Build a list of old URLs from several sources:

• a crawl of the current website;
• pages with traffic in analytics over the last year;
• pages with impressions or clicks in Search Console;
• pages with external links, from backlink tools;
• important files: PDFs, images with image-search traffic.

Step 2: mapping

For each old URL, choose the new URL that best satisfies the same intent:

• same content moved: direct equivalent;
• content merged: the page that now contains it;
• content removed with no equivalent: the closest relevant category or parent page — or a 404/410 status if nothing relevant exists.

Redirecting everything to the home page is treated by search engines as a soft error and loses the old pages' value. Keep the mapping in a spreadsheet: old URL, new URL, status, notes.

Step 3: choose the right type

• 301 / 308 (permanent) — the page has moved for good; signals are passed to the new URL.
• 302 / 307 (temporary) — the move is temporary; the old URL remains the one to index.

For redesigns and migrations, use permanent redirects.

Step 4: implement

Redirects can be implemented on the web server, in the CDN, or in the application. Rules based on patterns (for example, an old category prefix) reduce the number of individual rules, but test them carefully for unintended matches. Preserve query parameters where they matter, and handle trailing slashes and letter case consistently.

Step 5: avoid chains and loops

If an old URL redirects to another old URL that redirects again, visitors and crawlers pass through several hops. Update older redirects so that each points directly to the final destination. Check for loops, where two URLs redirect to each other.

Step 6: update internal links and sitemaps

Redirects are a safety net, not a substitute for correct links. Update internal links, canonical tags, hreflang annotations and the XML sitemap to use new URLs directly.

Step 7: test and monitor

• Run the full list of old URLs through a checker after launch: each should return one redirect to a live page.
• Watch Search Console for 404 errors and indexing changes.
• Check analytics for traffic to key pages compared with before.
• Add redirects for any missed URLs as they appear in error reports.

Domain changes

When changing domains, redirect every URL on the old domain to its equivalent on the new one, keep the old domain registered, and use Search Console's change of address tool. See website migration.

How long to keep redirects

As long as possible — ideally permanently. Links and bookmarks keep pointing to old addresses for years. Removing redirects later is a common cause of traffic lost long after a migration.