Website Redesign SEO: A Redirect Checklist for Dubai Businesses

Start with the addresses people already use

Collect the old URLs before the new site replaces them. Include service pages, articles, booking pages and downloadable files that customers still need. Ask the people handling sales which links they paste into emails or WhatsApp. Those links may matter even when a page receives little search traffic.

For each address, record its purpose, the planned action and the person responsible. A small spreadsheet can be enough. Keep both the full old URL and the final new URL so a developer can test the exact journey. Mark unresolved decisions rather than assuming every old page should disappear.

Use fictional examples when sharing a planning document outside your team, and keep private customer messages out of a public migration brief. You need the address and its business purpose, not a copy of someone’s enquiry.

Match the destination to the original need

A visitor following a product-photography link should reach the relevant photography information. Sending every retired address to the homepage may leave the original question unanswered. Distinguish an equivalent replacement, a genuine consolidation into a broader service, and content that no longer has a useful successor.

Here is a practical planning example. The addresses are illustrative, not instructions to change your own server:

Keep the mapping review separate from copy approval. A beautifully rewritten page can still be the wrong destination for an old link.

Use the right redirect for the change

Google’s redirect documentation distinguishes permanent moves from temporary ones. A server-side 301 or 308 is appropriate for a permanent address change; temporary moves use a different signal. Ask your developer which response the old address actually returns.

A clickable link saying “we moved” is not the same as a server redirect. Neither is silently loading the old design under a second address. Review what a visitor and a crawler receive from the original URL, not only the final page seen in a browser.

Keep the route direct where possible: old address to the final useful destination. Repeated moves can leave a chain through several retired addresses. Include those older addresses in testing rather than checking only the version replaced last week.

Update links you control as well

A redirect is a useful bridge, but your own menus, buttons and article links should point to the intended current page. Review the footer, service cards, contact buttons, language navigation and links inside older articles. A menu can look correct while its destination still points to a staging domain.

Check separate systems too: booking tools, email signatures, business-profile website links and campaign landing pages. Record each owner so an address is not missed between teams. Do not change paid campaigns casually as part of a design deployment; coordinate their destinations with whoever manages the account.

When the page address stays the same, confirm that important section links still have matching anchors. A shared link ending in #choose-time should still bring someone to a useful place after the layout changes.

Check the new page before handing over

For a service page, the destination needs more than a successful load. Confirm that its heading, service description and next-step button match the visitor’s expectation. Try a small phone screen, open the navigation and follow the booking route without relying on a desktop-only hover.

• Does the final page load without another unexpected move?
• Does its title describe the actual service?
• Does its canonical URL identify the intended public address?
• Are images and key content available on mobile?
• Do contact buttons use the current public phone and email?
• Can someone return from the booking route without losing context?

Test enquiry submission separately with the team’s normal test procedure. Clicking a WhatsApp button confirms that a contact route opens; it does not establish that an enquiry arrived or a project was booked.

Give search engines a consistent new structure

Google’s site-move guide recommends planning the URL mapping, testing the new site and monitoring both sets of addresses. It also explains that rankings can fluctuate while changed URLs are recrawled and processed. A redesign is not a promise of immediate ranking improvement.

Ask for a launch checklist covering current sitemap URLs, canonical tags and any temporary indexing restrictions used during development. Keep a named person responsible for checking the live configuration after release. A staging-site setting should not be carried over by accident.

Keep a dated copy of the approved URL map alongside the launch record. When a later change is proposed, that record explains why the existing redirects were added and which journeys they protect.

Monitor a small set of useful signals

Compare like-for-like periods and distinguish visits from outcomes. Look at requests for old URLs, genuine missing-page errors, search clicks to the affected pages and working contact journeys. A quiet report immediately after launch is not proof that every customer path works.

Investigate a reported failure before removing a link. A third-party site may block automated checks even when it opens for a visitor. Conversely, a friendly “not found” screen may conceal a broken journey. Review the actual destination and response with the developer.

Give sales and support a simple way to report the exact URL that failed, the expected destination and the date. That is more actionable than a screenshot saying the site feels broken.

Questions to ask your redesign partner

Can we keep our existing page addresses? Often that is worth considering when the page’s purpose remains the same. Discuss changes for a clear reason rather than changing every URL to make the launch feel new.

Should every old page go to the homepage? No blanket rule fits every page. Review the original intent and choose an appropriate replacement or retirement decision.

Does a redirect guarantee the same traffic? No. Content, technical implementation, demand and search processing all matter. Agree the checks and reporting, not a guaranteed ranking.

Planning a redesign? Explore ABAB’s web design and development services in Dubai, discuss SEO and digital marketing priorities, or book a project conversation. Bring your current site address and the journeys your customers use most.