What Happens to Indexing After a Redesign
Site redesign is one of the riskiest moments for SEO. If URLs have changed, page structure is different, or new technical solutions have emerged — Google needs time to rethink your site.
A typical picture after launching a new design: traffic holds steady for the first week, then a sharp drop of 30–70% and a long recovery process. Most of these problems can be prevented or significantly reduced.
Before Launch: Preparing Indexing
The most important thing to do is before publishing the new site:
- Audit of current URLs — take a screenshot or CSV of all indexed pages (via Search Console or the site: operator)
- Redirect maps — for each old URL, write down the new one. If /product/123 becomes /products/widget-blue, you need a 301 redirect
- Test crawl — before launch, crawl the staging environment with Screaming Frog or an equivalent
- Save the old site's sitemap — you'll need it as a reference
Changing all URLs without 301 redirects. Google loses all accumulated signals for old pages. New URLs start from scratch. Recovery can take 6–12 months.
Launch Day: First Steps
After publishing the new site, the first 24 hours are critical:
- Check all 301 redirects (curl or Redirect Checker)
- Ensure robots.txt does not block the new site
- Check that noindex was not left over from the test environment
- Update sitemap.xml — it must reflect the new URLs
- Add the updated sitemap to Search Console
Mass Reindexing After Redesign
Even with perfect redirects, Google needs time to crawl the entire site and update data. For a large site, this takes weeks. The Google Indexing API can speed up the process.
Algorithm of actions:
- Update sitemap.xml with the new URLs
- Submit all pages via the Google Indexing API (IndexFast does this automatically)
- For pages with changed content, resubmit with the type URL_UPDATED
- For deleted pages, submit URL_DELETED so Google removes them from the index immediately
The Indexing API supports two request types: URL_UPDATED (index or update) and URL_DELETED (remove from index). After a redesign, it is crucial to submit URL_DELETED for pages that no longer exist, otherwise, Google keeps them in a soft 404 state for weeks.
Reindex the Site After Redesign in a Day
IndexFast will submit all new URLs via the Google Indexing API and help remove outdated pages from the index. Without code, without manual work.
Try for free →Monitoring After Launch
The first 4 weeks after redesign are a critical period. Monitor:
- Search Console → Coverage — the number of indexed pages should not drop sharply
- Search Console → Performance — clicks and impressions. A drop of 20%+ indicates a problem
- Crawl errors — 404s on old URLs (check redirects)
- site: Comparison — a week and a month after launch
What to Do If Traffic Drops After Redesign
- Check robots.txt — maybe a whole section is blocked
- Check canonical tags — they might point to non-existent or incorrect URLs
- Check 301 redirects — redirect chains (A→B→C) reduce signal passing
- Compare the structure of the new and old sitemap — find missing pages
- Resubmit problematic URLs via the Indexing API
Checklist for Indexing After Redesign
- 301 redirects for all changed URLs
- robots.txt checked and allows crawling
- noindex tag not left over from staging
- Sitemap.xml updated and registered in Search Console
- All new URLs submitted via the Indexing API
- Deleted pages submitted with URL_DELETED
- Search Console monitoring configured