How to move an old website without losing its addresses?

Why addresses matter more than they seem

Every page of the old site has an address, and something points at it: a search result, a link from an article, a business directory or a partner’s site, an old newsletter, a QR code on a flyer, a bookmark in a customer’s browser. If the new site names its pages differently and the old addresses lead nowhere, all of those paths end on an error page.

To a search engine, a page at a new address is at first a new page. A redirect tells it this is the same content, just somewhere else. Without one, the page’s history has nowhere to go. That is why we do not treat the address move as a technical detail for the last day, but as a separate piece of work that starts before the design does.

It starts with an inventory of old addresses

Before a new structure exists, we need to know what the old site actually contains. The navigation is not enough: it often leaves out older articles, campaign landing pages or downloadable documents that people still visit. So we put the list together from several sources:

• the old site’s sitemap (the sitemap.xml file), if there is one,
• Google Search Console: pages that show up in search and get clicks,
• analytics: pages with traffic over the past year, including campaign entry pages,
• an export from the admin: pages, articles, products, categories and PDF files,
• a crawl with a tool that follows every link and finds forgotten pages too,
• printed materials, e-mails and social media profiles where addresses are printed or pasted.

The result is a spreadsheet. For each address we note whether it has traffic, whether outside links point to it and what happens to the content: it stays, it merges with another page, or it goes away. That is a content decision, not a technical one, and the site owner makes it with us, not the developer alone.

A 301 redirect map: every old address gets its own target

The inventory turns into a redirect map: for each old address, the new address it should lead to. We use permanent redirects with the 301 status code. That is how the web server tells browsers and search engines the page has moved for good.

A few rules we build the map by:

• To the closest matching content. An old page about a specific service leads to the new page about that service, not to the homepage. Search engines usually treat a blanket redirect of everything to the homepage as a missing page.
• No chains. If the old site already had redirects, they point straight at the new target, not through an extra step.
• What goes away may go away. A page with no replacement and no traffic can return a 404 or 410. That is more honest than redirecting it to something unrelated.
• For the long term. Google recommends keeping redirects as long as possible, generally at least a year. That is why the map belongs in the site’s documentation, so it does not disappear with the next hosting change.

If the domain changes too, the same applies one level up: the old domain has to stay live and redirect page by page, not just to the new domain’s homepage.

Content, headings, images and forms

A redirect moves the address, but not the reason the page ranked. If the content is rewritten during the move, the signals a search engine uses to judge the page change too. Rewriting is allowed; it just has to be a deliberate decision, not a side effect of the new design.

Copy and headings

For pages that bring in traffic, we carry over the page title, the search description and the main heading, and keep a similar structure of subheadings. If the copy is out of date we update it, but we keep the topics people search for that page by.

Images and documents

We move images with their descriptions (the alt attribute) and meaningful file names. If the site gets traffic from image search, or outside links point to its PDFs, those files belong in the redirect map as well. Price lists and catalogues in PDF are the ones forgotten most often.

Forms

For day-to-day business, the enquiry form matters more than search positions. Before launch we check where a submitted enquiry arrives, who receives it, whether the customer gets a confirmation and whether spam protection catches it by mistake. One wrong e-mail address is enough for enquiries to vanish for a week without anyone noticing.

Measurement

We set up analytics and goals (a submitted form, a tap on the phone number, an order) so the new site can be compared with the old one. Before launch we save a baseline: traffic to key pages, the number of enquiries and search performance. Without it, after launch you can only guess whether something got worse.

Search Console after launch and the first weeks

Launch day is for checking, not celebrating. We go through a sample of addresses from the map and confirm they return a 301 to the right target. We check the new site has not kept the “do not index” setting from the staging version, a more common mistake than you would expect. In Google Search Console we submit the new sitemap, and if the domain changes, we use the change of address tool.

In the weeks that follow we mainly watch:

• 404 errors in Search Console and in analytics: each one is an address missing from the map, and it can be added,
• indexing: whether the search engine picks up the new pages and gradually replaces the old ones,
• traffic and clicks to key pages against the baseline,
• the number of enquiries and orders, because those matter most,
• the speed of key pages on mobile.

Even a well-executed move does not guarantee nothing shifts in search. Google itself notes that a temporary fluctuation can happen even when everything is done right. Preparation shortens it and helps find what to fix quickly.

If a drop shows up after launch, the first question is whether it affects the whole site or only some pages. A concentrated drop usually leads back to a missing redirect or to content that changed more than planned during the move. That is why it pays to keep the inventory and the baseline data at hand for a few more months.

How we handle the move

With new websites, technical SEO is part of the job: heading structure, descriptions, a sitemap, structured data and redirects from old addresses. We set up analytics and goals so you can see where people come from and where they leave. At launch we deploy the site, measure the speed of key pages and set up the redirects. The scope of the move, meaning how many addresses, how much content and which files are carried over, we pin down in the proposal based on the inventory.

With e-shops the move is more involved, because products, variants and order history join the addresses. What to watch out for there is covered in A new e-shop, or changes to the one you have?

If you are considering a rebuild, the calculator gives a rough scope. We go through the address and content move in an initial consultation, which takes 30 minutes. Just discuss a project with us and describe what your site has today.