Your new website is live. The design is finished, the content is where it should be, and the old site can finally go away.
But there’s one thing that doesn’t disappear with it: its URLs.
People may still have them bookmarked. Other websites can keep linking to them. Google may still show them in search results. And some of those old URLs can continue receiving traffic long after the new website has launched.
So while the migration might feel finished, there’s still a little cleaning up to do.
Old URLs don’t disappear when your website moves
Let’s say your old website had an About page at:
example.com/about-us
On the new website, that same page lives at:
example.com/company
From your perspective, the move is obvious. One page replaced the other.
But someone clicking an old link doesn’t know that. Neither does their browser. Without a redirect, they’ll simply request /about-us, find nothing there, and most likely end up on a 404 page.
The same goes for search engines and links from other websites. Launching a new site doesn’t automatically update all the places where your old URLs already exist.
That’s where redirects come in.
Give old URLs a useful new destination
If an old page has a clear equivalent on the new website, the decision is pretty straightforward.
Redirect:
example.com/about-us
to:
example.com/company
For a permanent website migration, you’ll usually use a 301 redirect. It takes visitors to the new location automatically and tells search engines that the old URL has permanently moved.
The important part isn’t just creating redirects, though. It’s choosing where they lead.
Say your old website had separate pages for pricing, services, case studies and contact information. If those pages still exist on the new site under different URLs, each old URL should ideally point to its closest new equivalent.
Sending all of them to the homepage would certainly be quicker. It just wouldn’t be particularly helpful.
Someone looking for your pricing shouldn’t have to start again from the homepage simply because the website changed.
Not every old URL needs to survive
A migration is often a good opportunity to clean up content too.
Maybe your old website has campaign pages from five years ago, outdated job listings, discontinued services or content that simply isn’t useful anymore. If those pages aren’t coming across to the new website, you need to decide what should happen to their URLs.
And sometimes the right answer is: nothing.
If there’s no relevant replacement, you don’t need to invent one just to avoid a 404. Letting the old URL return a 404, or in some cases a 410, can be perfectly reasonable.
A simple way to sort through old URLs is:
The page moved → redirect it to the new location.
The page was replaced → redirect it to the closest relevant replacement.
The content is gone → a 404 or 410 may be the right response.
The URL still has traffic or backlinks → take a closer look before deciding.
You’re not trying to keep every URL alive forever. You’re trying to make sure the ones that still matter don’t suddenly lead nowhere.
Plan your redirects before launch
Redirects are much easier to plan when the old website is still sitting in front of you. Once it’s gone, figuring out what used to live where gets a lot less fun.
You don’t need an elaborate migration system. A simple URL map is usually enough to get started:
Export or collect the URLs from your existing website.
Identify the pages that receive traffic, rank in search, have backlinks, or are otherwise important.
Match each important old URL to the closest equivalent on the new website.
Create permanent redirects for pages that have moved.
Update internal links, canonical URLs and your sitemap to point directly to the new URLs.
Test the important old URLs before launch, and again once the new website is live.
Your redirect map might end up looking as simple as this:
/about-us → /company/our-work → /projects/pricing-old → /pricing
You don’t need to spend hours finding a destination for every obscure URL your website has ever created. Start with the ones that actually matter, then deal with the rest based on whether there’s somewhere useful to send them.
A redirect is there for old links that are already out in the world. Your new website, on the other hand, should point directly to its new URLs rather than relying on redirects internally.
Changing domains adds one more thing to remember
Some migrations involve a new website. Others involve a new website and a new domain.
If you’re moving from:
oldbrand.com/services
to:
newbrand.com/services
the redirects depend on you keeping control of oldbrand.com.
You don’t necessarily need to keep the old website or its hosting. You do, however, need the old domain to remain yours and to keep sending requests somewhere that can handle the redirects.
This is easy to overlook once the new brand is live and the old domain feels like something you no longer need. But old search results, backlinks and bookmarks can keep bringing people to it for a long time.
Google recommends keeping site-move redirects in place for at least a year. And if an old domain still has useful links pointing to it, there’s often little reason to rush into switching those redirects off after that.
The migration doesn’t quite end on launch day
Launch day gets most of the attention, but it’s worth checking what happens afterwards too.
Test your important old URLs. Keep an eye out for unexpected 404s. If an old page is still receiving traffic, make sure those visitors are ending up somewhere that makes sense.
You’ll probably find a few things you missed. That’s normal. A redirect map is much easier to improve when you know which old URLs people are actually still using.
Redirect Supply lets those redirects live separately from the website itself. You can connect the old domain, create rules for the URLs that need new destinations, and keep them working without keeping the old website online just for the sake of redirects.
Your old website can disappear.
Its useful URLs don’t have to disappear with it.
