SEO Recovery
Your traffic dropped after a redesign.
A new look almost never causes a ranking drop by itself. Something underneath it broke: indexing, redirects, content, or speed. We find the exact cause and fix it.
- We diagnose before we touch anything
- Redirect map audited URL by URL
- Content compared old page to new, not guessed at
What we check, in order
The four usual causes of a post-redesign drop.
Indexing first
We check every important page for a stray noindex tag left over from staging, since that alone can pull pages out of Google's index within days of launch.
Redirect coverage
We crawl the old URL list and confirm each one either still exists or has a working 301 to its closest match, since a URL change with no redirect returns a 404 and loses everything that page had earned.
Content parity
We compare the old page's content to the new one word for word on the pages that mattered most, since a shorter or vaguer replacement page can rank lower even with a perfect redirect. We check the headings and the first paragraph especially closely, since those carry a disproportionate amount of the relevance signal a search engine reads from a page.
Technical health
We check page speed, mobile rendering, and internal links on the new site, since a slower or harder to navigate site can lose ground even once indexing and redirects are fixed.
How we prioritize the fix
If pages are noindexed
We remove the stray tag and resubmit the sitemap in Search Console immediately, since this is the fastest fix and often the biggest single cause.
If redirects are missing
We build the missing 301s from the old URL list to the closest current page, rather than redirecting everything to the homepage, which loses most of the value a proper redirect preserves.
If content got thinner
We restore or rewrite the page to match or exceed what the old version covered, since a design refresh that quietly cut half the copy is a common, avoidable cause.
If the site got slower
We address the specific cause, often unoptimized images or a heavier script stack from the new build, rather than treating speed as a vague, unfixable cost of a better looking site.
How the recovery runs
01
Pull the before and after
We compare Search Console coverage, the old sitemap, and the new site page by page to see exactly what changed.
02
Fix in priority order
We clear stray noindex tags first, then complete the redirect map, then restore thinned content and technical issues.
03
Resubmit and monitor
We resubmit the sitemap and watch Search Console for recovery, since Google needs to recrawl before rankings can return.
Post-redesign traffic questions
It depends on the cause. A stray noindex tag can clear within days of being removed and recrawled. A full redirect and content restoration can take longer, since Google needs to recrawl and re-evaluate each page, not just notice the fix exists. We watch Search Console's coverage report daily for the first couple of weeks after a fix, since that's usually where the first signs of recovery show up before rankings themselves move.
Every URL that was indexed or earning traffic should redirect to its closest current equivalent. Pages that genuinely no longer exist in any form can return a proper not found status instead, but that should be a deliberate choice, not an accident. We flag any page we're unsure about rather than guessing, since a page wrongly assumed dead can turn out to be one still earning meaningful traffic elsewhere.
It's worth ruling out. We check the date of the drop against any known Google update rollout around the same time as launch, since that would point to a different, unrelated fix than a redesign problem. When both happened close together, we still fix the technical issues first, since those are within our control regardless of what the update did.
Speed helps, but rarely on its own if indexing, redirects, or content were also affected. We fix all four together rather than assuming speed was the whole story. We measure speed against the specific pages that lost ranking, not the site average, since a slow money page matters more than a fast one buried deep in the site.
Almost never. A second redesign adds another point of risk before the first one is even diagnosed. Fixing the specific technical and content issues on the current site is nearly always the faster, safer path. In the rare case a rebuild is genuinely warranted, we treat it as its own project with its own redirect plan, not a quick patch on top of the last one.
Get your rankings back after the redesign.
Send the old sitemap and the live site. We will check indexing, redirects, content, and speed in that order and fix whatever is actually costing you traffic, priced within one business day, no charge for the look.