You will be able to handle changed URLs and removed pages without losing search visibility.
A parent bookmarks Priya's old timetable page last year. This term she taps the bookmark and lands on "Page not found". Priya had reorganised her site over the holidays and the timetable now lives at a new address. The parent assumes the centre has closed, or at least that its website is not looked after, and searches for another one.
Google has the same experience on a larger scale. Every address it has indexed, and every link from another site, points to a specific URL. When that URL changes or disappears without a plan, people and search engines hit a dead end. This lesson covers how to change addresses and remove pages without losing the visibility you have built.
A redirect sends anyone who visits an old address to a new one automatically. For a page that has moved for good, use a permanent redirect, usually a 301. Google's documentation says permanent redirects are a strong signal that the new address should be shown in results in place of the old one, and Google follows them to the new page.
Redirect each old address to the closest matching new page. Priya's old /timetable page should point to the new /classes/timetable page, and her old /p5-maths page to /p5-maths-tuition-tampines. A reader following an old link or bookmark arrives where they expected, and Google can pass what it knew about the old page to the new one.
Most website builders have a redirects section in their settings where you enter the old path and the new one. Some create a redirect for you when you change a page's address. Check whether yours does, because many do not.
When pages are removed, a common shortcut is to redirect all of them to the homepage. It feels tidy and it means nobody sees an error.
It confuses people, though. Someone looking for a specific class or product lands on a general page and has to start again. Google treats it as unhelpful too. Its documentation explains that redirecting a removed page to an unrelated page such as the homepage may be treated as a soft 404: Google sees that the new page does not replace the old one and handles it much like a missing page anyway. You get the confusion without the benefit.
Redirect only when there is a real replacement. If Priya stopped running a holiday workshop and has a new one on the same topic, redirect the old page to the new one. If the workshop is simply gone, a redirect to the homepage helps nobody.
A 404 is the status a server returns when a page does not exist. It sounds like an error to avoid at all costs, but Google is clear that 404s for pages that are truly gone are normal and do not harm the rest of your site. Google will gradually drop those addresses from its index.
The aim is not zero 404s. It is to make sure pages that matter, and pages other sites link to, either still work or redirect to a proper replacement. A helpful custom 404 page, with your menu, a search box and links to your main services, means a visitor who hits one can still find their way.
A redesign or a move to a new platform is the moment a small business site is most likely to lose the visibility it has built. Page addresses change in bulk, content is rewritten or dropped, and the staging settings from lesson 4.1, Robots.txt, noindex and canonicals do different jobs, sometimes come along to the live site.
The protection is a redirect map, made before launch. List every address on the old site, using your sitemap, your Search Console Performance report for pages that get impressions and any pages other sites link to. Beside each one, write the new address it should go to, or mark it as removed with no replacement. Set up the redirects so they go live with the new site, and test a sample of old addresses on launch day.
If you are moving to a new domain, Google also offers a Change of Address tool in Search Console to tell it about the move. Its site move documentation sets out the full sequence, and it is worth reading before you start.
After launch, watch the Page indexing report in Search Console, covered in lesson 9.3, Page indexing and URL Inspection, for a rise in pages not found or redirect errors over the following weeks.
Priya listed the addresses she had changed during her holiday reorganisation. She went through each one in a private browser window by typing the old address and seeing where it landed. Four went to the right new page, two showed "Page not found" and one sent people to the homepage. She fixed all three in her builder's redirect settings in ten minutes.
Do the same for your site. Think back over the past year: any pages renamed, moved into a new section, merged or deleted. If you are unsure, compare an old sitemap or your Search Console data with the current site. Then work through the activity below and test where each old address now goes.
List any URLs on your site that changed in the past year and check each one redirects to the right new page.
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