The short answer
A redirect sends anyone who opens an old address to the page that replaced it. Every old page that mattered needs one, pointing to its closest match and not the home page. You help most by telling us which pages bring in business and where old links live outside the website, such as print, email and ads. Approve the list on the preview before launch.
The short version of the theory
A search engine ranks addresses. If an address changes and nothing points the old one at the new one, the history of the old page does not follow it. A redirect is that pointer. The full method, including permanent and temporary redirects, chains, domain moves and the monitoring plan, is in Redesigning without losing SEO and the 301 redirect entry.
This page does not repeat any of that. It helps you act: find your situation, use the worksheet, and know what to send us.
Which situation are you in?
| Where you are | What to do now | What to send us |
|---|---|---|
| The redesign has not launched yet | Ask to see the redirect list as part of what you approve on the preview link. Do not wait for launch week. | Your list of important pages and any outside places that link to your site (see below). |
| It launched recently and traffic looks lower | Do not start changing things. Check whether the dip is concentrated in a few pages or spread across the whole site, and whether the dates line up with launch. | The launch date, a screenshot link of the traffic chart and two or three example old addresses. |
| You or a designer renamed pages yourselves | List what was renamed and when. A few forgotten renames cause a lot of broken links. Some WordPress setups redirect a renamed page on their own, but do not rely on it. | The old and new address of each renamed page. |
| You are changing your domain name | Treat this as its own project, not an ordinary redesign, and tell us before anything is switched. See point your domain to a new site. | Both domain names, and who controls the domain account. |
| You are moving to a different platform | Ask for the list of old addresses to be exported before the old site is switched off. It is hard to rebuild afterward. | Access to the old site by invitation, never a password, or a list of its pages if you have one. |
The redirect list worksheet
The list is the document that decides how this goes. Ask us for a copy during the project, or start your own in a spreadsheet with these columns. You do not need to know the technical side. You need to know what each page is for.
| Column | What goes in it | Who fills it in |
|---|---|---|
| Old address | The full address of every old page you can find, taken from the sitemap or the old page list. | We usually produce the list. You add anything you know is missing. |
| New address | The page that now does the same job. When pages were merged, several old rows point to one new page. | We propose it. You check it makes sense to a customer. |
| What the page did | Brought calls, brought orders, ranked for a service, was linked from another site, or nothing special. | You for anything commercial. We from the data. |
| Priority | High, medium or low. High is anything that brings leads or orders. | Agreed together. |
| Printed or shared elsewhere? | Yes if the address is on a brochure, vehicle, QR code, email signature, ad or partner page. | You. |
| Checked on preview | The date and the name of the person who clicked it. | A second person on our team, then your own sample check. |
| Decision | Redirect, merge into another page, or let it end with a proper not-found page. | We recommend. You approve. |
Where old addresses hide outside your website
A list built from the website's own data misses everything printed or shared elsewhere. Go through this list and send us anything that applies.
- Print: brochures, flyers, business cards, signs, vehicle wraps and any QR code that opens a page on the site.
- Digital: the website link in your Google Business Profile and social profiles, email signatures, newsletter links and the destination addresses of ads.
- Other sites: partner and supplier pages, directory listings, press mentions and old guest articles that link to a specific page.
- Documents: PDFs, price lists and downloads that people open from search or email. If a file moves, its address changes too.
- Separate systems: booking, payment or login pages that live elsewhere but are linked from the site.
Not every item needs a redirect. Some are better updated at the source, such as an ad destination or a profile link. We can tell you which is which once we see the list.
What you check on the preview
- 1Open the redirect list we share and sort it by priority. Start at the top.
- 2For each high-priority row, read the old address and the new one. Ask: if a customer clicked the old link, is this the page they expected?
- 3Flag any row where the new page is the home page or a general page. These are usually a compromise and deserve a second look.
- 4Flag pages you want to retire on purpose, and say why.
- 5Click a sample of at least ten of the new addresses on the preview link to confirm they exist and read correctly.
- 6Reply with approvals and changes through your project manager. Nothing goes live until you approve.
The technical check, that each old address reaches its destination in one step, is done by us and checked by a second person before you see it. Your part is the judgment only the owner of the business can make: is this the right page for that customer?
After launch: what you might see, and what to do
| What you see | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console lists "Page with redirect" | These are old addresses that now redirect. It is an expected entry after a redesign. | Nothing, as long as the destination pages are indexed. |
| Search Console lists "Not found (404)" | Google found an address that no longer exists and has no redirect. | Check the address against the list. If it mattered, tell us. If it was meant to end, leave it. |
| An old page still shows in Google results | Google has not revisited it yet. Results update as Google recrawls. | Click it. If it lands on the right new page, leave it. If it lands on an error, send us the address. |
| A customer says an old link goes to the wrong page | A row in the list pointed to a poor match, or the link was never on the list. | Send us the old address and the page you would have expected. |
| Traffic fell in one section and nowhere else | That points to a specific cause in that section: missing redirects, removed content or changed links. | Send us the section, the date range and a screenshot link. |
| Traffic dipped a little everywhere | Some movement after a launch is normal. Changing several things in a panic hides the cause. | Note the date, compare with the same period last year, and talk to your project manager before changing anything. See Search Console basics. |
Worked example: the brochure nobody remembered
Example: The brochure nobody remembered
A training provider has 60 old pages and plans a redesign with 45. The list built from the website covers it well. During the preview review, the owner mentions that every course brochure printed this year has a QR code opening /courses/first-aid/, and the new site calls that page /training/first-aid-course/. The website data could not have known about the QR code. Because it was raised before launch, the old address was mapped to the new page, and the only check left was to scan the code from a phone. The owner also remembered the link in the business profile and updated it to the new address. The lesson: a list built from the website covers what the website knows, and your list covers what customers actually hold in their hands. This is an illustrative scenario.
When to ask us
Ask before a launch, not after. Send a request through the support form if addresses are about to change, if they already changed and nobody planned for it, or if a customer or Search Console shows errors.
- A few example old addresses and the page you expected each one to reach.
- The date the change went live.
- The redirect list or page list if you have one, shared as a Google Drive or Dropbox link.
- Where old links live outside the site: print, ads, partner pages.
- A screenshot link of the error or the traffic chart.
Several tickets sent in the same session are merged into one, so put everything in one request. The support team reviews it and follows up. Timing for a launch is a question for your project manager, and nothing goes live without your approval on a preview link.
