Redesign a website without losing search rankings

A redesign does not sink a website. What sinks it is changing addresses, deleting useful pages, and going live without telling search engines where the content went. This is the method we follow in Douala to rebuild a site without losing the rankings it already has, whether the old site was ours or someone else’s.

Start with an inventory, not a mockup

Before any drawing, export the list of addresses that exist. Three sources are enough, and they cross-check each other:

• the pages the site already publishes, including those no menu shows;
• the pages Google has already seen, through Search Console if the account exists, otherwise through the site: command and the sitemap;
• the links other sites, email signatures or business cards still cite.

Each line gets a decision: keep it as it is, merge it with another, redirect it, or drop it because it answers no search and serves no visitor. That list is the migration brief. Without it, the mockup decides in place of search.

The audit also says what can be salvaged. A poorly fitted theme on clear content can be rebuilt. A site whose copy, photos and client proof do not exist is not “redesigned”: it is created, and that has to be said before anyone quotes. It is the same starting point as when we take over an existing site.

Keep the addresses that already work

A visited address is an asset. It has been shared, sometimes printed, sometimes cited by a directory or an article. Changing it so it “looks cleaner” throws that asset away. Change it in only two cases: it is incomprehensible (/page.php?id=42), or it carries a word that is no longer true.

When it changes, the redirect is permanent, one by one, from the old address to the page that answers the same intent. A catch-all redirect to the homepage passes on almost nothing: the visitor and the engine land on a page that does not discuss what they were looking for. Also check chains: an old address should not bounce three times before the final page.

A bilingual site doubles the work, and that is deliberate. Each French page has an English twin, and the two point at each other. Changing only one of the two paths breaks the pair. We describe this way of building pages on website development.

Do not throw away the content that answered searches

Design ages faster than client questions. “How much does a pool cost in Douala”, “HR firm in the CEMAC region”, “offline point-of-sale software”: if a page already answered that question, the new page must answer it at least as clearly, from the first paragraph. A prettier shell with vaguer copy is a regression, even when the mockup wins the meeting.

Rewrite what is wrong, dated or unreadable. Do not rewrite for the pleasure of rewriting. Page titles that already describe the subject stay close to the original: those are often what the engine displays, and changing all of them on launch day blurs the signal.

Images matter too. A heavy 4,000-pixel photo slows the page on a 3G network and can cancel the gain of the redesign. Weight budgets and formats are those in our guide to a fast website on a slow network.

Launch day

The cutover is a short sequence, repeated the same way on every project:

1. Redirects are in place on the staging environment, and a sample of old addresses is tested by hand.
2. The new site keeps the same domain name. Do not launch the redesign on a new domain “for now”: two sites in parallel compete with each other.
3. The new sitemap is submitted, and the important old addresses are inspected to confirm they point at the new page.
4. Forms, the WhatsApp number and emails are tested from a phone, not only from the office.
5. Search Console, if the account was in the previous provider’s name, moves to the client the same day. A measurement tool you do not own is useless the following month.

The code repository, the design files and the hosting credentials follow the same path: they are in the client’s name at delivery. The frame is the terms of service.

The four weeks after

A clean redesign is not judged on launch evening. For a month, look at three things, once a week:

• old addresses that still return an error, often a page forgotten inside a PDF or a campaign;
• the queries that used to bring visits, to see whether the new pages still receive them;
• pages whose load time got worse, almost always because of an image or a script added late.

A dip of a few days is ordinary: engines recrawl. A dip that lasts, concentrated on a handful of addresses, usually points at a missing redirect or copy that was thinned out too far. Fix those pages. Do not relaunch the whole site.

When not to redesign

Not every ageing site needs to be rebuilt. If the problem is a wrong sentence, a blurry photo or a broken form, repair it. If the site cannot be found because it never had titles or a sitemap, lay those foundations before talking about a mockup. A redesign is justified when the structure blocks progress: pages that cannot be edited, a load time that cannot be recovered, or an identity that no longer matches the business.

The budget follows the scope. In our practice, a redesign with migration sits between 250,000 and 700,000 FCFA, where a new showcase website starts at 200,000 FCFA. The ranges are detailed in how much a website costs in Cameroon. A two-page audit, a list of addresses and a decision for each, avoids paying for a rebuild where a repair was enough.

Ask for the audit before the quote

Send the address of the current site and say what no longer works: slowness, missing pages, content you cannot edit, a brand image that is out of date. We reply within 48 hours with what to keep, what to redirect and a range, even if the project stops there. The form is on the contact page. Case studies, including bilingual showcase sites already live, are in selected work.