Website Relaunch Without Losing Rankings

Will I lose my Google rankings during a relaunch?

No, if you do it cleanly. Rankings survive a website relaunch as long as every old URL redirects permanently to its new address with a 301 and the content and structure stay largely intact. Google then passes the relevance it has built up from the old page to the new one. The dreaded crashes after a relaunch almost always come down to exactly one mistake: forgotten or incorrectly set redirects. The new design is secondary here, the groundwork on the URLs is what decides it.

I am writing this down because I regularly get inquiries from businesses that suddenly receive fewer requests through Google after a relaunch. That can almost always be prevented if you take the right steps beforehand.

Why is a relaunch risky in the first place?

Google does not remember “your company,” it remembers individual addresses, that is, URLs. If your page for the service “renovation” sat at your-company.ch/services/renovation for years and was well placed there, then that placement is tied to exactly that address. During a relaunch, addresses like this often change without anyone noticing. /services/renovation might become /offer/renovations, or the page disappears entirely.

To Google it looks like this: the old address no longer delivers anything (error 404), and the new address is an unfamiliar page that it first has to classify anew. All the relevance built up over years is then left hanging. That is the moment when rankings tip over.

On top of that: other websites link to your old addresses, an industry directory, a partner, a newspaper article. After the relaunch, these links point to nothing if the old address does not redirect. These external references are also part of what carries your placement. You do not want to lose any of that.

The safe process

I go through the same steps for every relaunch, in this order. Most of it happens before the new site even goes online.

1. Capture all old URLs

First I need a complete list of which addresses the old site has and which of them bring in visitors. The sources for this are the existing XML sitemap, Google Search Console (which pages rank and bring clicks), and a crawl of the old site with a tool like Screaming Frog. That way I not only see all the pages, but also which ones actually have value. A page that has had no visitors and no links for years does not need the same treatment as the top page.

2. A 1:1 mapping, old to new

This is the core. For every old URL, I record in a simple table where it points to in the new structure. One column for old, one column for new, done.

When an old page disappears with no replacement, I do not stubbornly redirect it to the homepage, but to the thematically closest new page. A renovation page points to the new offer overview, not into nothing and not to something arbitrary. That is manual work, and it pays off.

3. Set up 301 redirects

Only now does the technical part come in. Every row from the table becomes a real 301 redirect. Where it lives depends on the system: with WordPress, often in a plugin or in the .htaccess, with a custom-built site, directly in the server configuration. The only thing that matters is that it is a 301 (moved permanently) and not a 302 (only temporarily), because only the 301 transfers the relevance. Whether WordPress or a custom solution suits you better is something I compared in WordPress or custom-built.

4. Carry over titles, meta text, and content

A page that ranks well ranks because of its content. If I radically cut the text during the relaunch or reinvent the page title and meta description, I take away from Google exactly what it placed the page well for. So I keep proven titles and content and improve them gently, instead of throwing everything overboard. Fresh text is good, clear-cutting is not.

5. Check internal links and canonical

In the new build, the internal links have to point to the new addresses, not via the detour of the redirect. Every link that first runs through a 301 is a small drag. On top of that, I check the canonical tags: every page should point to itself, otherwise Google might sort it out. That is a common, quiet mistake.

6. Resubmit the sitemap

After go-live, I generate the new XML sitemap and submit it in Search Console. That way Google finds the new structure faster, instead of working its way through page by page.

After go-live: watch and follow up

The relaunch is not finished once it is live, it moves into an observation phase. In the first weeks, I check Google Search Console regularly:

• Coverage and indexing. Are the new pages being captured? Do many “not found” suddenly appear?
• Crawl errors and 404s. Every 404 that shows up in Search Console is a forgotten address. I follow up on it with an added 301. Even after good preparation, a few appear, that is normal.
• Rankings and clicks. If an important page drops out, I go after the cause there specifically, instead of waiting.

This is also the moment when a well-kept Google Business Profile provides extra security: local visibility does not hang on the website alone, and a current profile cushions part of the short-term fluctuation.

To be honest: a little fluctuation in the first two to four weeks is normal even with clean work. Google first has to re-index the new structure. Anyone who knows this does not panic and does not rashly tear something up. What matters is the trend over several weeks, not the individual day.

The most common mistakes

Almost all ranking losses after a relaunch can be traced back to a short list of mistakes. These are the ones I see again and again:

• No redirects at all. The new site goes live, the old addresses deliver 404. The worst and, unfortunately, most common mistake.
• Redirecting everything to the homepage in bulk. It works technically, but it barely helps. Google often treats a redirect to an unfitting page like a 404. Every page belongs on its thematic counterpart.
• Content cut radically. Twelve content-rich pages turn into three sparse ones. With that, exactly the text the page ranked with disappears.
• Forgetting noindex from the test phase. During the build, the new site is often set to “do not index.” If that setting stays in at go-live, the whole website drops out of the index. A classic with a big effect.
• Broken image URLs. If the image addresses change and do not redirect, you lose hits in Google image search, which is noticeable in some industries.
• 302 instead of 301. A temporary redirect signals to Google that the move is not final. The relevance then stays stuck at the old address.

What it costs and when the effort is worth it

The effort for securing a relaunch depends on the number of pages and old addresses. For a small business-card website with a handful of pages, it is manageable and included in the project. For a grown site with hundreds of addresses and many old campaign pages, the mapping becomes the actual work. For context: a new website starts with me at CHF 3,500, a larger presence is in the range of CHF 7,500 to 12,000. For me, the clean redirect work is part of the project and not an expensive add-on. What the ranges cover is something I broke down in What a website costs in Switzerland.

If you run a site that is barely found through Google, for example because customers come exclusively through referrals or Google Maps, you have to worry less about ranking loss. The relaunch is more relaxed here, and a bit of 301 hygiene is enough. But the more of your business hangs on organic search, the more important the groundwork becomes. In Switzerland, around 90 percent of search runs through Google, so there is a lot at stake with a well-ranking site.

If a relaunch is coming up and you are unsure how to save your existing visibility, take a look at the SEO page or get in touch briefly via the contact form. I will look at the old structure and tell you where the effort really lies. I reply within one business day (Mon to Fri).