SEO during a website redesign: preserving indexation

Before changing structure, export live URLs, response codes, canonicals, titles, descriptions, and known inbound links. Mark pages that already earn impressions, visits, or inquiries.

This inventory becomes the migration baseline. Without it, useful pages can disappear, distinct intents can be merged, and redirect chains can emerge unnoticed.

Every changed useful URL needs a permanent redirect to the closest relevant destination. Redirecting the entire old site to the home page loses meaning and creates a poor user journey.

Keep an existing address when it is clear, stable, and still matches the content. A visual redesign does not require a URL change.

Production pages need self-referencing canonicals, correct language, unique titles and descriptions, crawlable primary text, and a coherent heading structure. The sitemap should include only canonical indexable URLs returning 200.

Robots rules must not block resources needed for rendering. Administrative areas and private APIs should remain excluded from crawling and indexing.

After deployment, verify redirects, sitemap, representative templates, and real error logs. Then submit the sitemap to Yandex Webmaster and request recrawl for priority URLs.

Search changes are not immediate. Track excluded pages, crawl errors, impressions, and query movement over time instead of drawing conclusions from one day.