They lose traffic because the new site breaks the old URLs. When a page moves and nothing points Google to its new home, the ranking that page earned over years vanishes. The design looks great, but the search traffic drops. The redesign did not cause it. The missing redirects did.
We see this pattern often. A team launches a beautiful new site, then watches leads fall for weeks. The cause is almost always technical, not visual. Old pages return errors, redirects are missing or wrong, and Google slowly drops the pages it can no longer find.
A migration done right keeps your rankings intact. The trick is to treat SEO as part of the build, not a cleanup task after launch. Below is how we protect search traffic every time we move a site, whether it is a redesign or a platform switch like WordPress to Webflow.
It means moving your site to a new design, platform, or domain while keeping the search rankings and traffic you already have. The goal is that Google, and your visitors, land on the right page every time, even when the underlying URL or code has changed. Nothing valuable gets lost in the move.
A migration can mean several things. It might be a visual redesign on the same URLs. It might be a platform change, like moving from WordPress to Webflow. It might be a domain change or a switch from HTTP to HTTPS. Each type carries different risks, but the SEO goal is the same: preserve every signal you have earned.
Those signals are the point. Over time, a page collects links, rankings, and trust from Google. A careless migration throws that away and starts you near zero. A careful one carries it forward. That is the whole game, and it is why we plan the SEO side before we touch the design.
Migrations lose rankings when Google can no longer connect an old page to its new version. If a URL changes and no redirect points the way, Google sees the old page as gone and the new page as brand new. The old page's ranking dies, and the new page has to earn trust from scratch.
The most common cause is missing or broken redirects. A new site often uses a new URL structure, so one blog path becomes another. Without a redirect, the old address returns a 404 error. Every link and ranking tied to that address is now pointing at a dead end.
Other causes pile on. Pages get dropped in the redesign, so content that ranked simply no longer exists. The new site accidentally blocks Google in its robots.txt file. Canonical tags point to the wrong page. Each of these quietly tells Google to forget pages you wanted to keep. A migration is really a long list of small technical details, and any one of them can cost you.
You start by crawling the old site to get a full list of its live URLs, then match each one to its new address. This map is the backbone of the migration. Every important old URL needs a clear destination on the new site before you launch, with no gaps.
We build this map early. A crawler like Screaming Frog or the reports in Google Search Console gives you every URL Google knows about. Tools like Ahrefs or Semrush add the pages that earn the most links and traffic, so you know which ones matter most. You never want to guess here.
Then you match each old URL to a new one. Most map one to one. Some old pages merge into a single new page, so several old URLs point to one destination. A few pages may be retired, and those should redirect to the closest relevant page, not the homepage. This is the same discipline we describe in our guide to moving from WordPress to Webflow, where the URL map decides whether traffic survives the switch.
Use permanent, server-side redirects. Google recommends a permanent redirect, a 301 or 308, whenever you change the URL of a page shown in search results. A permanent redirect tells Google the move is real and that the new URL should take the old one's place. Avoid temporary 302 redirects for permanent moves.
The difference matters. A 301 says the page has moved for good, so Google should update its index to the new address. A 302 says the move is temporary, so Google keeps the old URL in mind. Using a 302 for a permanent move leaves Google unsure which page is real. For a migration, permanent is almost always what you want.
Keep the chains short. Google says Googlebot can follow up to 10 hops in a chain of redirects, but it advises keeping chains low, ideally no more than 3 and fewer than 5. A redirect that points to another redirect that points to a third wastes crawl budget and can slow the move. Point each old URL straight at its final home.
It takes time, not minutes. Google says a medium-sized website can take a few weeks for most pages to move in its index, and larger sites can take longer. You will often see rankings wobble during this window before they settle. That dip is normal if your redirects are correct.
Because of that lag, you keep the redirects in place. Google advises keeping redirects for as long as possible, generally at least one year. That gives Google time to recrawl every old URL, move its signals to the new page, and update links that other sites still point at your old addresses. Remove them too soon and you undo the work.
Patience is part of the plan. We tell clients to expect a few weeks of movement and to watch, not panic. As long as the URL map is complete and the redirects are permanent, the traffic returns. Pulling levers in week two, out of fear, usually causes more harm than the migration itself.
Use Search Console to guide and watch the move. Submit your new sitemap so Google discovers the new URLs fast. If you are changing domains, use the Change of Address tool to tell Google officially. Then monitor coverage and errors closely for weeks after launch.
The sitemap comes first. After the move, you submit the new sitemap in Search Console, and Google uses it to find and crawl your new pages. You can remove the old sitemap once the new one is live. This one step speeds up how quickly Google learns the new structure.
For a domain change, the Change of Address tool matters. Google recommends submitting a Change of Address request when you move from one domain to another, and doing it for all subdomains. For a simple move from HTTP to HTTPS, though, Google says you do not need the tool. After launch, we watch the coverage and page indexing reports daily, because that is where broken redirects and dropped pages show up first. A clean crawl in Search Console is part of the wider work in our Webflow SEO checklist.
Test twice. Before launch, crawl a staging version of the new site and check that every redirect resolves to the right page with a single hop. After launch, crawl the live site the same way, then watch Search Console for errors. Testing is what turns a risky move into a safe one.
The pre-launch crawl catches most problems. We run the URL map through a crawler like Screaming Frog and confirm each old URL returns a 301 to the correct new page, not a 404 and not a chain. We check that the new site is not blocking Google in robots.txt and that canonical tags point to the right pages. This is cheaper to fix before real users arrive.
The post-launch check confirms it held. We crawl the live site, spot-check the highest-traffic pages by hand, and monitor Search Console coverage for a rise in errors. Traffic and rankings get watched for weeks, not days. If a page slips, we trace it to a specific redirect or tag and fix that one thing, rather than guessing.
Yes, if your current site is holding you back, and you plan the SEO side first. A migration is safe when you map every URL, use permanent redirects, keep them for at least a year, and watch Search Console after launch. Rushed with none of that, it is one of the fastest ways to lose traffic.
The order matters more than the speed. Build the URL map, set the redirects, test on staging, then launch. Submit the sitemap, use the Change of Address tool if the domain changes, and monitor for weeks. Done this way, a redesign or platform switch protects your rankings instead of risking them.
Migrations are a big part of what we do, and protecting search traffic is the first thing we plan, not the last. If you are thinking about a redesign or a move to Webflow and want to keep every bit of traffic you have earned, reach out at phoenix.studio and let's talk it through.
Tell us where you want to go. We'll tell you how we'd get you there.