Does Changing Your Website URL Affect SEO? Here’s What You Need to Know

In this episode of The SEO Migration Podcast, Charles Taylor; aka The SEO Migration Guy, dives into one of the most common and critical questions in SEO: Does changing your website URL affect SEO? Spoiler alert: it absolutely can. But the good news is, with the right process in place, you can protect your rankings, traffic, and authority.

Charles breaks down why URLs matter so much to search engines, what risks are involved in changing them, and how to handle URL changes during a website migration or redesign. If you’re planning to change domain names, switch to HTTPS, restructure your site, or launch a new CMS, this is a must-listen.

Whether you're an SEO pro or a site owner preparing for a big move, you'll walk away with clear, actionable insights on how to change your website URL without damaging your SEO.

🔍 Key Takeaways:

• Why every URL is like a phone number in Google’s database
• The real SEO impact of changing a URL structure or domain
• How improper redirects can wipe out your organic traffic
• The difference between a smart migration and a slow SEO death
• What you can do to protect rankings before, during, and after launch

Need Help with Your Site Migration?

Changing your website’s URL doesn’t have to mean starting over. CTO Migrations (a service of Charles Taylor Online LLC) helps site owners, SEOs, and developers navigate high-stakes site changes with confidence. Schedule a free discovery call at https://www.CharlesTaylorOnline.com.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hey everyone, welcome back to Migration Mondays at CTO Migrations —I’m Charles Taylor, the SEO Migration Guy. Today’s question is a big one I get all the time:

👉 Does changing your website’s URL affect SEO?
Short answer? Yes. And sometimes in ways that can be… painful if you're not careful.

Here’s what’s at risk:

🔍 Loss of rankings: Pages may disappear from search if redirects aren’t done right.  This means you will lose traffic and most importantly revenue.

🐢 Slow recovery: I discussed this in a previous episode.  Studies show, on average sites take 16 months to regain their previous traffic, if they recover at all.

Let me break down why this occurs:

When Google indexes your site, each URL is essentially like a phone number in its database. It’s got history, links pointing to it, and a reputation that helps it rank. So, when you change that URL—whether it’s a full domain switch or just a new URL structure—you’re basically switching our your current number.

But just like in real life, if you don’t leave a forwarding number — i.e. set up a proper migration process — people (and Google) won’t know how to reach you. Your pages can vanish from search results, traffic can drop, and it can over a year—to recover, if at all.

But here’s the good news:
When migrations are handled properly—with pre-launch plan, mapped content, clean redirects and updated internal links—you can preserve most, if not all, of your SEO value.

In fact, with CTO Migrations, that’s our mission: helping websites and brands retain their search visibility during major moves, redesigns, or rebrands.

So, Does Changing Website URL Affect SEO?  Yes, changing URLs can affect SEO… but with the right plan, it doesn’t have to hurt.

That’s it for today! If you’re planning a migration or even thinking about changing your URL structure, let’s talk before you hit publish. You can find me at CharlesTaylorOnline.com or see the link in the show notes below.

Until next time — migrate responsibly.