Redirect Map: Proven Steps to Avoid Redesign SEO Risk
A redesign changes addresses, and search engines attach everything they know about your business to addresses. The redirect map is the spreadsheet that decides where every old URL goes before a single rule is written. This guide covers the five sources a complete URL inventory needs, the schema that keeps the map usable under pressure, how to choose each destination without defaulting to the homepage, the status codes that actually transfer ranking signals, a QA pass that tests every row rather than a sample, platform-by-platform implementation trade-offs, chain and loop flattening, a launch-hour runbook, a 30-day recovery plan with stated targets, and the point at which redirect rules can safely be retired.
