Redesigning Your Website? Make a Map of the Old URLs Before Launch

Before a redesigned website goes live, list the old URLs and decide where each should lead. A page can look excellent while customers following an old search result land on an error or an unrelated homepage. A redirect map makes those decisions visible before launch day.

Build the old-page inventory first

Gather your existing sitemap, important pages from analytics, links used in active campaigns, and URLs printed in documents or saved in business profiles. Ask the team about pages customers routinely reference. The most valuable destination may be a service specification with modest traffic, not your most visited blog.

Save the list before changing the site. Include the old URL, its purpose, whether the service still exists, and the proposed new destination. Google’s site-move guidance recommends preparing a mapping between old and new URLs. For an owner, the practical question is whether the destination still serves the visitor’s original need.

Assign a decision to every important URL

• Old page situation: Same service and same URL; Proposed treatment: Keep the address where practical.; Acceptance check: The public page still answers the service question.

• Old page situation: Same service, new URL; Proposed treatment: Map the old address to the equivalent new page.; Acceptance check: The redirect reaches the intended page directly.

• Old page situation: Two pages intentionally combined; Proposed treatment: Choose the relevant consolidated destination.; Acceptance check: The retained page preserves useful information from both.

• Old page situation: Service permanently retired; Proposed treatment: Decide whether a useful replacement exists.; Acceptance check: The outcome is honest and does not imply the old service is available.

Do not send every old page to the homepage just to avoid visible errors. A customer looking for a specific service still needs a relevant answer. Where no suitable replacement exists, ask the site provider to implement an appropriate unavailable-page response rather than a misleading destination.

Test the addresses customers will actually use

Give your provider a test set that includes important service pages, older articles, common address variants, and relevant campaign links. Open the old link and record the final URL, response, title, and next action. Check on a phone as well as a computer. A redirect that works technically can still lead to a broken form.

Also update internal links, navigation, sitemap entries, and controllable business-profile links to the new addresses. Repeatedly making customers travel through old URLs adds avoidable complexity and makes later troubleshooting harder.

Keep launch proof and a recovery owner

Ask for the mapping file, the test results, and the person who will address unexpected missing pages. Confirm that the temporary development site’s search settings do not accidentally remain on production. Keep the old inventory available after launch while customers and search systems catch up.

A site move can cause search fluctuations; a redirect map does not guarantee stable rankings. It gives your team a controlled way to preserve relevant destinations and diagnose problems. If a managed website agent helps prepare the work, require human approval of retired pages and verified public checks after publication.

Save a copy of the old address list outside the page builder so it remains available if launch troubleshooting interrupts access.

Primary references: Google site move guidance.

Continue with reviewing existing content and checking the customer path.

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