Every page on your website has an address: the line at the top of the browser most owners never read. It's how Google finds the page and decides what to show.
An address builds up a history. Other sites link to it, customers bookmark it, it turns up in search results for years. What the page says matters too, but the history belongs to the address.
This is where a rebuild goes wrong. The new site looks better, but every page has a new address, and the old addresses are where your Google traffic goes. If those stop working, customers hit dead ends and Google struggles to match old to new.
Redirects are the job
A redirect is a note at the old address: this page moved for good, here's where it went. The visitor lands where they meant to, and Google follows the note too, which helps carry over what the old page earned, though rankings can still move while it works through the change.
Two things decide whether it works. Send each old address to the page that replaced it, not your homepage: Google may read a homepage dump as a missing page, not a moved one. And get there in one step: every extra stop slows the visitor and makes it harder to follow.
One address per page
One page can often be reached several ways: with the www at the front and without it, with a slash on the end and without it. Google usually picks one and sets the rest aside. Make that choice yourself.
Pick the one you want people to land on. Redirect the others to it, mark it preferred in the page's code, list it in your site map, and use it in your links.
Telling Google what changed
Google doesn't know you rebuilt anything until it comes back around. Your site map is the list of addresses your site publishes. Hand it over, and change a page's date when its main content changes. Change dates on pages that didn't change and Google learns to trust your dates less.
How we build ours
We build ours so every page has one address and every other spelling redirects there in one step. When a page's content really changes, its site map date changes too.
What this means for your trade
- HVAC and plumbing: a site that covers many towns
- Auto and boat repair: renaming services, merging sites
Frequently asked questions
Will my rankings drop when the site changes?
Expect some movement. Anyone promising you none is guessing. A complete map of old to new addresses takes the avoidable losses off the table, but it can still take weeks or longer to settle.
Do I have to keep the old addresses working forever?
Keep them at least a year, which Google advises, and longer while old links send visitors. A redirect is one line of instruction, not a page you maintain, so leaving it costs almost nothing. An old domain still needs renewing.