Website Not Ranking After Redesign

Overview

A website redesign is one of the most common causes of sudden ranking drops for GTA contractors. When pages move, URLs change, or technical settings get misconfigured during launch, Google loses track of your site — and the traffic you built up over months disappears. The damage is preventable, but only if the right steps are taken before and immediately after launch.

What Causes This?

• url structure changed without proper 301 redirects from old pages to new ones
• noindex tags left enabled from the staging or development environment
• robots.txt blocking Googlebot from crawling the new site
• internal links pointing to old URLs that no longer exist
• canonical tags misconfigured or pointing to the wrong pages
• sitemap not updated or resubmitted to Google Search Console after launch

What Does It Look Like?

• site disappears from Google results for keywords it previously ranked for in Toronto or surrounding GTA cities
• Google Search Console shows a spike in crawl errors or “page not indexed” notices
• traffic drops sharply in the days or weeks following the redesign launch
• old URLs return 404 errors instead of redirecting to the new pages
• Google still shows the old site in search results but clicking through leads to a broken or wrong page

How to Diagnose It

• check Google Search Console for coverage errors, indexing issues, and any manual actions triggered after launch
• use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to see whether key pages are indexed and what Googlebot last crawled
• test the robots.txt file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt to confirm it isn’t blocking crawlers
• crawl the site with a tool like Screaming Frog to identify broken links, missing redirects, and noindex tags
• compare the current sitemap against the old URL list to find pages that were dropped or renamed without redirects

How to Fix It

• set up 301 redirects from every old URL to its equivalent new URL — do not skip pages with backlinks or organic traffic
• remove any noindex meta tags that were added during development and accidentally left on the live site
• update and resubmit the XML sitemap through Google Search Console and request indexing for priority pages
• fix the robots.txt file if it contains disallow rules that were meant only for staging
• update all internal links to point to the correct new URLs rather than relying on redirects to carry the load
• audit and restore any on-page SEO elements — title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure — that were lost or changed during the redesign

Related Technical Issues

• Noindex Tag — how an accidentally left-on noindex tag can silently remove your site from Google
• Redirect Errors — what happens when redirects are missing, chained, or pointing to the wrong destination
• Indexing Problems — why Google may not be crawling or indexing your pages after a site change

Get Help

A ranking drop after a redesign is a fixable technical problem, not a permanent loss. A free website audit shows GTA contractors exactly what’s wrong and what it will take to fix it.