Website Redesign SEO Checklist
Redesigns are the #1 cause of organic traffic drops. Follow this checklist to ensure your new AI-designed site ranks higher, not lower.
Warning
Never launch a new site without crawling your old one first. You need a baseline of all existing URLs using tools like Screaming Frog.
301 Redirects (Crucial)
Map every single old URL to a corresponding new URL. If a page is removed, redirect it to the most relevant category or parent page. Do not redirect everything to Home.
Meta Tags Migration
Ensure your best-performing titles and meta descriptions are carried over. AI can rewrite them, but be careful not to lose the keywords that are already ranking.
Structure & Hierarchy
Maintain a logical URL structure (e.g., /blog/post-name). Avoid changing URL slugs unless necessary.
Internal Linking
Fix broken internal links. If you linked to /about-us and now it's /company/about, update that link in the content.
XML Sitemap
Generate a new sitemap.xml immediately after launch and submit it to Google Search Console.
Robots.txt
Ensure your staging site blocked robots, but your LIVE site allows them. Double-check this!
Example: .htaccess Redirect
# Redirect old contact page to new Redirect 301 /contact-us.html /contact # Redirect entire directory RedirectMatch 301 ^/articles/(.*)$ /blog/$1
*If you are using Redesignr (React/SPA), handle redirects in your router config or server (Nginx/Vercel config).
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