Changing Your Website Domain: An SEO Redirect Plan
Changing a website domain requires a page-by-page plan. Identify each valuable old URL, choose its relevant new destination, and verify that visitors can still complete the task that brought them to the site.
For a business rebrand, the central question is practical: what happens when someone opens a bookmark, an old proposal, or a search result containing the previous address?
Start with the customer's destination
Build a worksheet with the old URL, new URL, content owner, and validation result. Prioritize pages that generate inquiries, explain services, answer support questions, or appear in customer documents.
Consider a hypothetical technology company moving from oldbrand.example to newbrand.example:
| Old page | Appropriate destination | Validation task |
|---|---|---|
/contact/ | New contact page | Submit a test inquiry and confirm receipt |
/services/store-support/ | Equivalent store-support page | Confirm the same service and next step are clear |
/guides/training-setup/ | Corresponding training guide | Check instructions and linked resources |
| Outdated campaign with no replacement | Deliberate retirement | Confirm it does not send visitors to an unrelated offer |
Matching paths alone is insufficient. A page can have the same address and a completely different purpose. Ask a person unfamiliar with the migration to follow the most important journeys.
Apply the search migration essentials
Google recommends permanent server-side redirects, such as 301 or 308, to relevant replacement URLs. Avoid funneling unrelated pages to the homepage and avoid unnecessary redirect chains. Update internal links, canonical URLs, and the new sitemap. Remove development-only indexing blocks from public pages. For a domain move, verify the properties and use Search Console's Change of Address process where applicable. Keep redirects for at least a year, and expect possible temporary search fluctuations. These recommendations come from Google's site-move documentation.
Give the move a business acceptance test
Treat the following as a suggested acceptance checklist:
- A customer following an old service link reaches the relevant current service.
- Contact forms deliver messages to the intended team.
- Download links open the correct document.
- Customer-facing emails use the current website address.
- The owner of each important page signs off on its replacement.
- Someone is responsible for reviewing broken-link reports after launch.
Keep this worksheet separate from the design approval. A polished homepage does not establish that old customer journeys still work.
Watch inquiries as well as search traffic
Record a baseline of important landing pages and the inquiries they generate before the move. After launch, review failed destinations, customer reports, and inquiry completion alongside Search Console data. If a particular service loses inquiries, investigate that journey before assuming the whole migration failed.
Should every old URL redirect to the new homepage?
Use a relevant replacement whenever one exists. The homepage rarely answers every old page's question.
When is the move ready?
A useful operational milestone is successful validation of the critical journeys, with a named owner monitoring remaining issues. Search engines may still need time to process the move.
Changing domains or rebuilding a business website? Talk with CCMS about your environment and the customer workflows that must keep working.
Moving a website?
Tell us which customer journeys have to keep working and we'll help you plan around them.
Contact CCMS