Your Website Redesign Looks Better. Where Did the Enquiries Go?
Updated
A redesign that quietly kills your enquiries may fail because something structural broke during the switch, rather than because the new site "looks worse": redirects, indexing, form tracking, or conversion tracking can fail, and more than one can fail at once. The good news is these failures are checkable in an afternoon, not a mystery that takes months to diagnose.
Why Does a Better-Looking Site Sometimes Convert Worse?
Design and performance are separate problems. A visually stronger site can still lose enquiries if the pages that used to rank on Google no longer exist at the same URL, if the new site accidentally blocks search engines from indexing it, or if the contact form that used to fire a tracked event now fails silently. None of those show up by looking at the site — they show up in traffic and conversion data, which is exactly why they get missed.
What's the Redirect Check?
If a page moves to a new URL, use a permanent redirect to its relevant replacement. A redesign alone does not require redirects for URLs that stay unchanged. For removed content with no relevant replacement, return 404 or 410. Google states that permanent redirects do not themselves lose PageRank; that is not a guarantee of unchanged rankings. Check each old URL: it should still serve the intended content, redirect to a relevant replacement, or return 404 or 410 if the content was removed.
What's the Indexing Check?
| What to Check | How It Silently Breaks Enquiries |
|---|---|
| robots.txt | A staging-environment "disallow all" rule sometimes ships to production by accident |
| Meta robots tags | A "noindex" tag left on pages after launch tells Google to drop them from results |
| XML sitemap | An outdated sitemap still pointing to old URLs slows re-indexing of the new ones |
| Google Search Console | Should show a spike in indexing requests right after launch, not a silent drop in indexed pages |
What's the Forms Check?
Submit a real test enquiry through every form on the new site and confirm it actually reaches you — email, CRM, wherever it's supposed to land — and that the submission fires whatever conversion tracking event your ad platforms rely on. A form that looks fine visually but fails to fire a tracking event will make your ad campaigns look like they stopped working, when the real problem is invisible measurement, not demand.
What's the Conversion Tracking Check?
Confirm Google Analytics, Google Ads conversion tracking, and any other pixel-based tracking were re-installed correctly on the new site, not just copy-pasted from an old template that references URLs or elements that no longer exist. Test tracking after a redesign, especially when forms, URLs or event handlers have changed.
How Do You Run This Checklist Without It Taking Days?
Redirects, indexing, and forms can each be verified in under an hour with the right tools — a redirect checker, Search Console's URL inspection tool, and one real test submission per form. Conversion tracking takes slightly longer since you need a real test conversion to confirm the event fires. Doing all four before undoing the redesign or blaming the design itself saves weeks of chasing the wrong fix. This is exactly the audit our SEO & Answer Engine Optimization team runs immediately after any client redesign.