Relaunches fail in predictable ways, and almost all of them are preventable with work done before anyone looks at a design. This is the sequence we follow.
Before: measure what you have
You cannot protect what you have not recorded.
- Export all current URLs — from the sitemap, a crawl, and analytics combined. Any single source will miss pages.
- Record traffic per page for the last twelve months.
- Record which queries each page ranks for.
- Record which pages have inbound links from other sites.
- Record which pages produce enquiries or sales.
- Take a full backup of files and database.
- Note current Core Web Vitals, so you can tell whether you improved or regressed.
The output is a list of pages that must survive, whatever the new design does.
Before: plan the structure
- Map every old URL to a new one. Every single one.
- For pages being retired, choose the closest equivalent — never a blanket redirect to the home page.
- Decide which content is kept, rewritten or dropped, using the traffic and ranking data rather than taste.
- Keep URLs unchanged wherever there is no strong reason to change them. The cheapest redirect is the one you do not need.
Before launch: the technical checks
noindexremoved from the staging build. This single item causes more disasters than any other.robots.txtnot blocking the site.- Canonical tags self-referencing, not pointing at staging.
- Redirects tested — every one, not a sample.
- Analytics and conversion tracking installed and firing.
- Forms tested end to end, including a real submission that arrives.
- Legal pages present and linked from every page.
- HTTPS working, with no mixed content.
- Mobile checked on real devices, not just a resized window.
- 404 page returning an actual 404 status.
Launch
- Go live at a quiet trading time, never before a peak season.
- Submit the updated sitemap in Search Console.
- Verify redirects on the live site immediately.
- Test a real enquiry and confirm it arrives in the inbox.
After: the part most projects skip
- Check indexing daily for the first week.
- Watch Search Console for crawl errors and spikes in 404s.
- Compare traffic against the same period last year, not last week.
- Re-check Core Web Vitals with real field data once it accumulates.
- Watch conversion rate, not only traffic. A site can hold traffic and lose enquiries.
Expect some fluctuation for two to four weeks. Sustained loss beyond that means a mapping gap, and finding it in week two is recoverable in a way that finding it in month three is not.
What is the single most common mistake?
Launching without a redirect map. It is also the most expensive and the most preventable.
How long should we keep redirects?
At least a year. There is little cost in keeping them permanently.
Should we relaunch and change platform at once?
If you can avoid it, no. Two changes at once makes diagnosing any problem twice as hard.