The failure is always redirects
A business redesigns, traffic halves, and everyone blames the new design. Almost always the cause is a few hundred URLs that changed with no redirect.
Every URL that changes without a redirect is a page that returns nothing to everyone who had linked to it or found it in search.
Before you launch
- Export every existing URL — from your sitemap, analytics and a crawl
- Map each to its new equivalent, or to the closest relevant page
- Set permanent redirects for every one that changed
- Test a sample, including your most-visited pages
- Keep the mapping file — you will need it in three months
Keep what is working
- Identify your top twenty pages by traffic and conversion before starting
- Do not remove content that is bringing in visitors
- Preserve the page titles and headings that are ranking
- Keep the internal links that pass authority to those pages
Redesigns often delete the unglamorous pages that were quietly doing the work.
Watch the first month closely
| Check | When |
|---|---|
| Crawl for broken links | Launch day |
| Search console coverage errors | Days 2–7 |
| Traffic against the previous month | Weekly for six weeks |
| Form submissions arriving | Launch day, then weekly |
Some fluctuation is normal for a fortnight. A sustained fall after three weeks is a problem to diagnose.
Test the forms
The single most common post-launch failure after redirects is a contact form that looks fine and delivers nothing.
Submit every form on the live site the day you launch. Two minutes, and it saves months of silent lead loss.