Quick answer
Keep your existing URLs wherever you can. Where a URL must change, 301 redirect it to its closest new equivalent, not the home page. Carry over the content, titles and internal links that already rank. For a domain move, also use Search Console's Change of Address tool for every old variant, including www and non-www.
This guide is for business owners about to rebuild a website, switch platforms or change domain. It is part of our SEO help centre. Most ranking losses after a new website come from a handful of avoidable mistakes, and almost all of them happen before launch day.
Check these first
- Will any URLs change? If every address stays the same and only the design changes, your risk is much lower. Changing URLs, platforms or domains is what turns a redesign into a migration.
- Do you have a full list of old URLs? Export it before anyone touches the live site. Sources: your XML sitemap, a crawl with a tool such as Screaming Frog, and Search Console (Indexing, then Pages, and Performance, then Pages).
- Do you know which pages earn traffic and leads? Export the top pages from Search Console Performance and from GA4 for the last 12 months. These pages get the most care.
- Is the new site blocked from Google? Staging sites are often set to noindex or blocked in robots.txt. That setting must be removed at launch.
- Who controls DNS, hosting and Search Console? You need access to all three on launch day. If a previous developer holds them, sort that out first.
Before you launch: crawl, export and map
Export the old site
Save these before the rebuild starts, because some of them disappear once the old site is gone:
- Every URL on the old site, including PDFs, images that get search traffic, and old blog posts.
- Each page's title tag, meta description and H1.
- Search Console performance data: queries and pages, exported to a spreadsheet.
- A record of current rankings for your main keywords, so you can compare after launch.
- The list of pages other sites link to. Search Console shows this under Links.
Build a URL map
A URL map is a spreadsheet with two columns: old URL and new URL. Google's site move guide makes this mapping a core step. Every old URL gets a row. Match each one to the new page that answers the same question. If a service page is being merged into another, point it at the merged page. If a page is genuinely gone with no replacement, it is better to let it return a 404 than to send it to the home page. Google's guide warns against redirecting many old URLs to one irrelevant page.
Setting up 301 redirects
Use server-side permanent redirects. Google recommends a 301 or 308 status, sent straight to the final URL. Avoid chains where one redirect leads to another, which often happens when an older redirect set is left in place. Google also says to keep redirects for as long as possible, and at least one year.
Apache or cPanel hosting (.htaccess)
On most Australian cPanel hosting, redirects go in the .htaccess file in the site's root folder. Back the file up before editing it. A typical setup looks like this:
RewriteEngine On
# One page to its new address
RewriteRule ^our-services\.html$ /services [R=301,L]
# A whole folder moved, keeping the rest of the path
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)$ /news/$1 [R=301,L]
# Domain move: every URL on the old domain (www and non-www) to the same path on the new one
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?old-example\.com\.au$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.new-example.com.au/$1 [R=301,L]Put specific page rules above broad folder rules, and test a sample of old URLs afterwards. Each should return one 301 and land on the right page.
WordPress
If the new site is WordPress, a redirect plugin (Redirection, or the redirect manager in Rank Math or Yoast Premium) lets you import your URL map as a CSV. Plugin redirects run after WordPress loads, so they are a little slower than .htaccess rules. For a few hundred URLs that is fine. For thousands, server-level rules are cleaner.
Shopify, Wix and Squarespace
Hosted platforms have their own URL redirect screens and fixed URL patterns. Shopify, for example, puts products under /products/ and pages under /pages/, so almost every URL changes when you move to it. Plan the full map before you choose a platform. Our WordPress vs Shopify vs Wix guide covers the trade-offs.
What to keep from the old site
Rankings belong to pages and the content on them, not to the design. Before you rewrite anything that ranks, check what it ranks for. Keep these unless you have a clear reason to change them:
- The main body copy of pages that bring in traffic. Improve it, but do not cut it to a few lines to suit a new layout.
- Title tags and H1s on top pages.
- Internal links. A new menu that drops a page from navigation can quietly cut its rankings.
- Structured data, such as LocalBusiness or Product markup.
- Image file names and alt text for images that get search traffic.
Launch day checklist
Copy this checklist into your project plan:
| What to check | What can go wrong | How to fix it | How long it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Still says Disallow: / from staging | Remove the block so Google can crawl the site | 5 minutes |
| Noindex tags | WordPress "Discourage search engines" left ticked | Untick it under Settings, then Reading, and check page source for noindex | 5 minutes |
| Redirects | Old URLs return 404 or chain through several hops | Test 20 to 50 old URLs from your map, fix any that fail | 30 to 60 minutes |
| XML sitemap | Lists old URLs or staging URLs | Regenerate it with new URLs only and submit it in Search Console | 15 minutes |
| Canonical tags | Point at the staging domain | Update them to the live domain | 15 to 30 minutes |
| HTTPS | Certificate missing on the new host or on www | Issue the certificate and force HTTPS (see our not secure guide) | 15 to 60 minutes |
| Analytics and tags | GA4, Google Ads or Meta tags not carried over | Re-add tags, then test a form fill and a phone click | 30 minutes |
| Forms | Enquiries stop arriving on the new server | Send a test enquiry and confirm it lands | 10 minutes |
Changing domain: the Change of Address tool
If you are moving to a new domain, for example from an old business name to a new one, Search Console has a Change of Address tool. It only applies to domain or subdomain moves. You do not use it for a move from http to https, or between www and non-www on the same domain.
To use it, verify the old and new sites in Search Console under the same Google account, set up the 301 redirects, then submit the request from the old property's settings. Google's help page says the tool forwards signals from the old site for 180 days.
The detail people miss: the tool does not cover subdomains, and www counts as a subdomain. On 17 June 2026 Google updated its site move guide to say you should submit Change of Address for all variants of the old domain, including www and non-www, even ones you never used. That means verifying each variant and submitting a request for each.
After launch: what to watch for 8 to 12 weeks
Google says a small or medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and that rankings can fluctuate during that time. Check these weekly:
- Pages report in Search Console: new URLs moving into "Indexed" and old URLs showing as "Page with redirect". A rise in "Not found (404)" means missing redirects. Our Search Console indexing errors guide explains each status.
- Performance report: compare clicks for your top pages against the same weeks before launch.
- Server logs or a crawl of your old URL list, to catch redirects that broke after later edits.
- Leads: enquiries and calls, which matter more than any ranking report.
If traffic is still falling after a month, work through our traffic drop guide to separate migration problems from a Google update.
Moving from WordPress to a PHP or static site
Moving off WordPress to a lighter PHP or static build is a full platform migration, even when the design looks identical. WordPress creates many URLs you may not think about: category and tag archives, author pages, /feed/ URLs, attachment pages and ?p=123 style links. Crawl the old site, decide which of these have value, and redirect them. Recreate the same clean URL pattern (with or without a trailing slash) so the main pages keep their exact addresses.
When to get help
A specialist will crawl both sites, compare the URL map against Search Console data, and check redirects, canonicals and indexing in the first weeks after launch. If you would rather not risk your rankings on the rebuild, we can plan and check the migration with you.
Talk to us about a website migration
About this guide
Written by Amann Jhamb, Director of AR Digital Solutions, 17 years in web design, SEO and paid ads. Last checked: 3 November 2026 against Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes. Change note: first published 3 November 2026. Part of our SEO help centre.