Relaunch without losing rankings: the checklist

A new website should bring more enquiries. With these steps you keep your Google positions during a relaunch, in every language.

A relaunch is a big opportunity and a risk at the same time. If you simply delete old addresses, you can lose visibility overnight that took years to build. With good preparation, that does not happen.

Before the relaunch

• Take stock: export all existing URLs, for example from Google Search Console and with a crawler.
• Identify key pages: which pages bring visits, enquiries and links? This content has to stay.
• Plan redirects: every old address leads to the matching new page, not simply to the home page.
• Map language versions: on multilingual websites, each language needs its own redirects and hreflang tags.

On launch day

• Activate redirects and spot-check them.
• Resubmit the sitemap in Google Search Console.
• Check titles, descriptions and structured data.
• Test tracking: do form submissions arrive? Are visits counted?

In the weeks after

Keep an eye on Search Console. If 404 errors appear, a redirect is missing. Compare rankings and enquiries with the situation before the relaunch.

A good relaunch barely registers with Google. Your customers notice it all the more.

We support relaunches from the initial audit to the checks afterwards. Find out more under web design & development.