Moving a site without losing it

Make the list before you touch anything

A move goes wrong at the list stage, not the launch. Pull every address the old site had: the sitemap, the pages Search Console reports, the pages in your server logs. The forgotten ones often carry links from other sites.

Then match them one at a time. Each old address gets one permanent redirect to the closest page on the new site. Sending everything to the home page is faster, and it throws the match away.

Google Search Central's redirects page, last updated April 14, 2026, says a permanent redirect shows the new page in search results. A temporary one keeps showing the old page.

Leave the redirects up longer than feels needed

Google's site move guidance, last updated June 17, 2026, says to keep redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year.

If the domain name is changing, Search Console has a Change of Address tool. Google's help page says you must own both properties, that it works only at the domain level, and that its actions continue for 180 days after you start. That page carries no update date. You do not need it for a plain move from http to https.

The parts that break quietly

Google's page on HTTP status codes, last updated February 4, 2026, says its crawlers follow up to 10 redirect hops by default. After two rebuilds an old address can pass through four or five hops, and every hop is a wait for someone on a phone. Point each old address at the final page, not at the last redirect you wrote.

The same page says newly found 404 pages are not processed, and crawling of them slows over time. A 404 for a page nobody linked to is not an emergency. A 404 with links pointing at it is.

Two more checks. Decide whether your addresses end in a slash, then send the other version to it. And copy your mail records before the switch, then send yourself a test message. Email sits on its own records at the same domain, so a website move does not have to touch it.

What to do next

None of this is a promise. Those Google pages describe how Google handles a move, not where you land in the results, and they cover Google only. Bing and the AI answer tools work their own way. If your current site loads fast and brings you work, a rebuild is not a purchase you need to make this year.

If you are moving anyway: - Export every old address before the old site comes down. - Write one permanent redirect per address, straight to the final page. - After launch, check each old address lands where you meant. - Watch Search Console for a few weeks and fix the 404s that had links. - Leave the redirects up for at least a year.