How to Move to a New Website Without Losing Your Google Rankings
You can move to a new website without losing the search visibility you've built, as long as every old address still leads somewhere sensible when the new site goes live. In practice that means four jobs: list your old addresses, map each one to its closest new page, set up permanent redirects, and check what happens afterwards. This is the checklist I follow. It's based on [Google's guidance on site moves](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes), with two real moves as examples.
First, check whether your addresses are changing
Not every new website is a move in Google's eyes. If you're only changing hosting and your page addresses stay exactly the same, Google points you to a separate guide for infrastructure changes, and you don't need a redirect plan. If you're swapping one domain for another and keeping every path the same, Google says a wildcard redirect on the server can handle it.
The full checklist matters when the structure changes: a new platform, renamed pages, or pages merged or dropped. That's where rankings usually get lost, because old addresses quietly stop working.
Step 1: List every old address
You can't redirect what you haven't found. Start with your most important pages and work outwards.
When I moved VG Charles & Co from its WordPress job board onto a new platform and domain, the old site's addresses were checked against the public web archive. 75 that no longer existed now redirect to their closest new page, from old blog posts to job-category and author pages. The VG Charles case study covers the wider project.
- Your sitemap, which usually holds the pages you care about most.
- Your analytics or server logs, to find the pages with the most traffic.
- The links report in Google Search Console, to find pages other sites link to.
- Images and downloadable files such as PDFs, which may already get traffic from Google or from links.
Step 2: Map each old address to its closest new page
Send each old address to the new page that does the same job. An old quote page should land on the new quote page.
Don't point everything at the home page. Google warns against redirecting lots of old addresses somewhere that doesn't match them, like the new home page, because it confuses visitors and can be treated as a soft 404 error. If you've merged several pages into one, redirecting them all to that page is fine. If content is gone with no replacement, Google says those addresses should return a 404 or 410 error.
Step 3: Use permanent redirects, and keep them
Google recommends permanent, server-side redirects such as 301 and 308 wherever possible. A temporary redirect tells Google to keep showing the old page in results, which is the opposite of what you want. Permanent redirects also don't cost you PageRank, so there's no reason to avoid them.
For Beeline VIP Coaches, the old site's addresses, such as /about-us and /get-a-quote, permanently redirect to their new pages. There's more in the Beeline case study.
- Redirect straight to the final page, not through a chain of redirects.
- Keep redirects for at least a year so Google can move its signals across. For visitors, Google suggests keeping them for good.
- Test them. Click through a sample yourself, or have your developer check the whole list with a tool.
Step 4: Keep what ranks
Redirects carry visitors across, but the new page still has to earn its place. If a page ranks well today, bring its content with it rather than starting from scratch. On VG Charles, the WordPress pages, articles, team and images were migrated into the new platform. On Beeline, every page has its own search title, description and social preview, and the sitemap is generated automatically.
Then check for the classic launch mistake. New sites are often hidden from search engines while they're built, and Google reminds you to remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only there for the move. Miss it and the new site may not be fully indexed.
Step 5: Launch and check afterwards
Expect some movement. Google says rankings can fluctuate for a while during a move, and on a medium-sized site it can take a few weeks or longer before Google shows the new addresses instead of the old ones. After a domain change, old addresses may still appear in results for a while, which Google describes as normal.
Checking a site after a move is part of the SEO work I do.
- Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console.
- If you've changed domain, submit a change of address request in Search Console for the old site.
- Watch the indexing reports for errors, especially pages suddenly returning 'not found'.
- Update links on your social media profiles, ad campaigns and the sites that send you the most visitors.
Frequently asked questions
Will I lose my Google rankings when I launch a new website?
Not if the move is done properly, though Google says rankings can fluctuate for a while during a move. Lasting losses usually come from old addresses that stop working, pages left blocked from Google, or content that ranked being left behind.
Can I just redirect all my old pages to the new home page?
No. Google warns against sending lots of old addresses to a page that doesn't match them, such as the home page. Send each one to the new page that does the same job.
How long should I keep the redirects?
Google says at least a year, so it can move all its signals to the new addresses. For visitors, it suggests keeping them for good, because old bookmarks and links never fully disappear.
I'm only changing my hosting company. Do I need all this?
Probably not. If your page addresses stay exactly the same, it isn't a move with address changes, and Google has a separate guide for infrastructure changes like switching hosts.
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