Key Takeaways:

• A poorly planned relaunch can cost 50-80% of organic traffic
• 301 redirects are the most important tool for preserving rankings
• Preparation begins weeks before launch, follow-up takes months

The new website is about to go live. Months of work on design, content, and technology are reaching their peak. Then comes the big day – and a week later, organic traffic has dropped by 60 percent. The phones stop ringing. Inquiries dry up.

This scenario happens to businesses more often than you'd think. A website relaunch without an SEO strategy is like moving to a new address without telling anyone. The old address no longer works, nobody knows the new one. Google needs time to make the connection – if it ever does.

Why Relaunches So Often Go Wrong

Most relaunch projects focus on design and functionality. SEO only enters the picture when it's already too late. By then, URL structures are set, content has been reorganized, and the old website is history.

Google evaluates each URL individually. When URLs change without telling Google where to find the new pages, your rankings disappear. The search engine must first discover, crawl, and evaluate the new pages. That takes weeks to months.

It gets even more problematic when content disappears or gets consolidated. Every page that generated traffic is an asset. Delete it without a redirect strategy, and you delete its ranking potential too.

The Three Phases of an SEO-Safe Relaunch

A successful relaunch consists of three phases: preparation, migration, and follow-up. Each phase has specific tasks you shouldn't skip.

Phase 1: Preparation (4-8 Weeks Before Launch)

Before you change anything on the new website, you need a complete inventory of the old one. Which pages exist? Which generate traffic? Which have backlinks?

Export all URLs from your current website. Google Search Console shows you which pages bring how much traffic. Focus especially on the top 100 pages – they often account for 80 percent of traffic.

Check external backlinks with tools like Ahrefs or Search Console. Pages with valuable backlinks deserve special attention. When these URLs disappear, you lose the link power.

Phase 2: Migration (Launch Day)

Launch day itself should run smoothly because you've prepared everything. The most important measure: 301 redirects for every old URL that changes.

Test every redirect before launch. A single typo can make an important page unreachable. Automated tools help, but manual spot-checks are essential.

Phase 3: Follow-Up (1-3 Months After Launch)

After launch, the real work begins. Monitor Search Console daily for the first two weeks. Watch for crawl errors, indexing issues, and ranking changes.

The technical SEO checklist helps you systematically look for problems. Broken links, missing redirects, and performance drops often only show up after launch.

Creating the Redirect Mapping

The heart of every migration is the redirect table. It connects every old URL with its new destination. Sounds simple, but quickly becomes complex with larger websites.

Start with an export of all URLs from the old website. Crawling tools like Screaming Frog capture every page systematically. Supplement the list with data from Search Console – there you see which pages actually bring traffic.

For each old URL, determine the appropriate destination on the new website. Sometimes it's a direct equivalent, sometimes a thematically related page. When in doubt, redirect to the homepage or category page – better than no redirect at all.

Document your decisions. When problems arise later, you need to understand why which redirect leads where.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Mistake 1: Redirect Chains

One redirect leads to the next, which leads to the next. Google follows a maximum of five redirects before giving up. Each additional redirect also delays load time.

Check for chains after launch. If page A redirects to B and B redirects to C, change the redirect from A directly to C. Keep redirects flat.

Mistake 2: Deleting Content Without Replacement

Every page with traffic or backlinks deserves a redirect. Even if the content no longer exists on the new website, redirect to the next best alternative. The category overview is better than a 404 page.

With 404 errors, you lose not only the traffic to that page but also the link power of incoming backlinks.

Mistake 3: Robots.txt Blocks New Pages

After launch, many forget to adjust the robots.txt. During development, it often blocks the entire staging server. When this setting transfers to the live site, Google can't index anything.

Check the robots.txt immediately after launch. Test with the URL inspection tool in Search Console whether important pages are crawlable.

Mistake 4: Canonical Tags Point to Old URLs

Canonical tags signal to Google the preferred version of a page. When they still point to old URLs after the relaunch, confusion and indexing problems arise.

Review canonical tags on all important pages. They must point to the new, current URLs – not to the old ones or to the staging domain.

Optimizing the New Website for SEO

A relaunch is the perfect opportunity to eliminate SEO debt. Use the chance to set up the new website correctly from the start.

The URL structure should be logical and flat. Short, descriptive URLs rank better than long ones with cryptic parameters. If you're changing URLs anyway, change them right.

Revise meta tags for all important pages. New designs often require new title lengths. Use the opportunity to update outdated descriptions.

Check the loading speed of the new website. New designs often bring new performance problems. Optimize images, enable caching, and minimize JavaScript.

After Launch: Monitoring and Response

The first weeks after launch are critical. Small problems can escalate quickly if they go unnoticed.

Set up alerts in Search Console. Google notifies you automatically about serious problems. Supplement these with manual checks: spot-checks of the most important pages, review of redirects, monitoring of rankings.

Some traffic drop in the first weeks is normal. Google needs to understand and evaluate the new website. Observe the trend over several weeks before panicking.

When You Need Professional Help

Small websites with few pages you can migrate yourself. For larger projects – hundreds of pages, complex redirect logic, international structures – professional support pays off.

An experienced SEO consultant recognizes risks that laypeople overlook. They bring tools and processes that minimize errors. The investment pays off when it prevents a traffic crash.

Analyze your website's current performance with our SEO Analyzer before planning your relaunch. This gives you a solid baseline for before-and-after comparison.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take for rankings to recover after a relaunch?

With correct implementation including complete redirects, rankings typically recover within two to six weeks. Larger drops without clear technical cause may indicate content issues and take longer. Without redirects, recovery can take months or never happen.

Do I need to redirect every single URL?

Focus on pages with traffic and backlinks. Pages without visitors and without external links you can ignore – Google forgets them anyway. Prioritize by importance: top 100 pages first, then descending by traffic.

Can I undo a relaunch if something goes wrong?

Technically yes, practically difficult. A rollback to the old website is possible, but the SEO damage has already occurred. Better is thorough preparation and fast problem-solving after launch. Keep the old website as backup, but don't plan on needing it.