Will I lose my Google rankings?

Why nobody can promise it

Google decides rankings, and it re-reads a site after any big change. Anyone who promises your rankings won't move through a website change is promising something they don't control. We'd rather tell you what we actually do.

What Google already knows about your site

Over the years, Google has learned three things about your current site:

1. Its addresses. Each page has an address, like yourbusiness.com/drain-cleaning, and other websites and Google itself point to those addresses.
2. What each page is about. Google has read your pages and decided which searches they answer.
3. That your business is real. Your name, phone number and towns appear consistently across your site and the web.

A careless switch throws all three away. Old addresses stop working, pages disappear, and details stop matching. That is how sites lose rankings when they move.

How we protect each one

Addresses. Every address on your old site keeps working. It shows a new page at the same address, or it sends visitors and Google on to the closest page we have. Google treats this kind of permanent forward as "this page moved here," and carries over what it knew. How old addresses are handled.

What your pages are about. Your new site covers the same work as your old one, and usually much more: a page for every service you do and every town you serve. Your blog posts keep their exact words and addresses. What pages your site gets.

That your business is real. Your name, phone number and towns come from one set of business details and appear the same way on every page. Every page also carries labels that tell Google who you are and where you work. The SEO built into every site.

What to expect after the switch

It's normal for Google to take a few weeks to re-read a moved site, and for rankings to shift a little while it does. Then the extra pages start to count: a site that covers every service and town you work in gives Google more reasons to show you, for more searches.