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Moving Your Website to a New Platform? Give Your Old URLs Somewhere to Go

A photorealistic scene in a backlit studio at sunset: a short-haired woman in a dark blue shirt sits at a wooden desk, running blue, purple and pink cables one by one from a translucent teal vintage CRT computer on the left to the back of a slim pink all-in-one on the right, both screens showing the same layout of coast and flower-field photos, all inside a rounded frame with a pastel blue-purple gradient

Your old platform keeps slowing down, and you've finally decided it's time for a change.

The new design looks great. Everyone's looking forward to launch day.

But before you hit publish, there's one question to ask: what happens to the old URLs that are still bringing customers to your site?

Do these situations sound familiar?

  • The new site goes live, but visitors arriving from Google see "Page not found."
  • Your articles have moved to new URLs, but search results still point to the old ones.
  • Links shared on other websites and in social media posts now lead nowhere.
  • The main menu pages made the move, but nobody knows what happened to the other articles and product pages.

Moving a website means more than moving its content. You also need a plan for every old URL.

Why do old URLs matter?

Search results, links from other sites, and your customers' bookmarks all point to specific URLs.

Switching platforms doesn't always mean changing those URLs. If you can keep them, that's one less thing to worry about.

When URLs do need to change, set up 301 permanent redirects. These automatically take visitors to the corresponding new pages and tell search engines that the content has moved.

A 301 redirect isn't a ranking guarantee, though. Search engines need time to process the changes, so rankings may fluctuate for a while after launch.

Three things to do before you move

  1. Take inventory of your old URLs. Start with your sitemap, then fill in any gaps using records from your old site's admin panel and Search Console. Don't stop at the pages in your menu.
  2. Build a redirect map. Match pages you're keeping to their new URLs, and redirect merged pages to the most relevant content. If you're retiring a page with no replacement, have it return a proper "not found" response. Don't send everything to the homepage.
  3. Check before and after launch. Test your redirect rules before launch. Once the new site is live, check the old URLs in batches to confirm they reach the intended destinations. Then submit your new sitemap and keep an eye on indexing and errors.

Build your redirect map before the move, not after customers start hitting dead ends.

One detail is easy to overlook: those redirects need to keep working. If you're changing domains too, keep renewing the old domain and maintain the settings needed for the redirects. Don't shut it down along with the old platform.

How tenet-O can help

  • Take inventory of old URLs using your sitemap and admin records, and identify which pages to keep, merge, or retire
  • Create a clear map of old and new URLs that you can understand now and refer back to later
  • Use scripts to check every old URL in batches before and after launch, rather than clicking through pages by hand
  • Help submit your sitemap and monitor indexing of the new URLs in Search Console

Still deciding whether to switch platforms? Start here:

Replacing Your Online Store? The Same "Redesign" Request Can Be Quoted Several Times Apart

Your new site is ready. Do your old URLs have somewhere to go?

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