Recipe: Managing Redirects After Site Redesign

When you redesign a website and URL structures change, you must set up redirects so visitors and search engines can find your content at its new location. This recipe covers the complete redirect workflow using Rank Forge’s Redirect Manager, which is part of the Free core.

Step 1: Plan Your URL Migration

Before launching the redesign, create a complete URL mapping.

1. Export a list of all current URLs on your site — you can find these in your sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml
2. Create a spreadsheet with two columns:

1. For every old URL, determine its new equivalent
2. Mark any pages that are being removed entirely — these should redirect to the most relevant remaining page
3. Identify URLs that are staying the same — these do not need redirects

Step 2: Set Up 301 Redirects

1. Go to Rank Forge > Tools in your WordPress dashboard and open the Redirects tab
2. For each row in your URL mapping spreadsheet, fill in the Add Redirect box at the top of the screen
3. Enter the source URL (old path) — use relative paths like /old-page/, not the full domain
4. Enter the target URL (new path) — again, use relative paths like /new-page/
5. Set the redirect type to 301 (Permanent) — this tells Google the page has permanently moved and to transfer ranking power to the new URL
6. Click Add
7. Repeat for all URL changes

Step 3: Handle Common Patterns

Rank Forge matches a request against one exact path, so it has no pattern or wildcard redirect: every old URL needs its own entry.

1. Where the URL structure changed in a predictable way, write down every old path with its new address (a spreadsheet works well) and add them one by one in the Redirect Manager
2. For example, if blog URLs changed from /blog/YYYY/slug/ to /insights/slug/, each old post URL gets its own redirect to its new address
3. Open a few of the old URLs in a private window to check that they land on the new pages before you add the rest

Step 4: Enable 404 Monitoring

1. Nothing to switch on: Rank Forge records missing URLs by itself, and there is no setting for it
2. Launch your redesigned site
3. Over the next 48 hours, actively check the Recent 404 URLs list on the Redirects tab of Rank Forge > Tools. It appears once a missing URL has been logged
4. Any URLs showing up in the 404 log are pages visitors or search engines tried to access that are returning “not found”
5. For each 404 entry, add a redirect to the appropriate new page
6. Pay special attention to 404s with high hit counts — these are your most-visited missing pages

Step 5: Verify Redirects Are Working

1. Test each redirect manually — enter the old URL in your browser and confirm it lands on the correct new page
2. Use the browser’s developer tools (Network tab) to verify the HTTP status code is 301, not 302
3. Clear all caches (browser, page cache, CDN) before testing
4. Test in an incognito/private browser window

Step 6: Update Google Search Console

1. Log into Google Search Console
2. If your domain or URL structure changed significantly, submit the new sitemap
3. Use the URL Inspection tool to test a few key redirects — confirm Google sees the 301 and finds the new page
4. Monitor the Coverage report for any increase in 404 errors over the following weeks
5. The local list of recent 404 URLs (Rank Forge > Tools, Redirects tab) is part of the Free core

Step 7: Ongoing Maintenance

1. Keep checking the Recent 404 URLs list: new broken links can appear at any time as external sites link to old URLs
2. Review the 404 log weekly for the first month after launch, then monthly thereafter
3. Never remove 301 redirects — they should remain in place indefinitely. External sites and bookmarks may continue using old URLs for years
4. If you set up a redirect that is no longer needed (because both URLs are gone), you can safely remove it

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