Rebrand Without Wrecking SEO: A Practical Checklist
Rebrands are exciting—new name, new look, fresh story. They’re also when websites accidentally vanish from search. The key is treating your rebrand like a site migration with a clear map, airtight redirects, and consistent signals across the web. Use this checklist to keep rankings, traffic, and conversions intact.
Prep the map: inventory, benchmarks, and risk controls
Start by crawling your current site to export every indexable URL, title, meta description, canonical, and top keywords. Pull benchmarks in Google Analytics/GA4 and Search Console: organic sessions, impressions, CTR, top landing pages, and queries. Flag revenue-critical pages and backlinks you can’t afford to lose. Lower your DNS TTL a few days before launch so cutovers propagate quickly. Build a one-to-one redirect map (old → new) for all pages, media, and PDFs—no “close enough” guesses.
Launch clean: redirects, canonicals, and technical hygiene
On go-live, implement server-side 301 redirects for every legacy URL (avoid chains and loops). Update canonicals, hreflang, structured data, and XML sitemaps to the new domain/paths. Refresh robots.txt and submit the new sitemap in Search Console. If changing domains, use Search Console’s Change of Address tool. Repoint internal links to the new URLs (don’t rely on redirects internally). Verify analytics, pixels, and conversions are firing on the new site; port your goals and ecommerce settings.
Reconfirm your authority: links, citations, and brand signals
Your authority lives off-site, too. Update top backlinks (partners, directories, press, chambers, vendors) to your new domain/brand—prioritize the highest-authority links. Refresh Google Business Profile, social bios, and major listings with the new name, URL, and NAP data for consistency. Publish an announcement post, add schema (Organization, WebSite, SameAs), and create a permanent “We moved” landing page for users and bots. Use UTM tags on campaigns to keep attribution clean during the transition.
Final Thoughts
Rebrands don’t have to reset your SEO. If you map every URL, execute flawless 301s, update technical signals, and quickly reclaim top backlinks, your visibility should hold—and often improve with a better IA and content. Treat it like a project, not a flip of a switch: monitor Search Console errors, crawl post-launch, and fix any stray 404s within days. New brand, same (or better) rankings—that’s a successful rebrand.