1. Before snapshot
An inventory of every public address on the current site, each with its title, canonical address, response code and tags. That is the reference state.
The real risk
What disappears when nobody wrote it down
The new site looks better and the phone rings less. The cause is almost never the design — it is what did not come across.
Old addresses return an errorEvery page Google knew, dropped without a redirect, becomes a dead end — for search engines and for the customer who kept the link.
The staging site stays open to search enginesTwo copies of the same content end up indexed and compete with each other.
The text that brought people in was trimmedA page cut down to three decorative sentences no longer answers the question people were typing.
Nobody measured before, so nobody knows afterWithout a baseline, a drop can be neither proven nor fixed. All that remains is an impression.
How the work is done
Four steps, each leaving a document behind
Nothing here relies on memory or on my word. Each step produces a file you keep — including if you hand the rest of the job to somebody else.
2. Redirect map
Every old address paired with where it will land, page by page. You approve the map before the switch; nothing is pointed at the home page out of convenience.
3. Check after launch
The same snapshot is taken on the live site and compared with the first: addresses lost, redirects missing, titles changed, pages that became non-indexable.
4. Thirty days of watching
Problems rarely show up on day one. The check is repeated through the following month and the gaps are corrected.
What you receive
Files, not a verbal promise
The work ends with documents that belong to you and stay readable without me.
The baseline snapshotThe state of the site before anything was touched, dated, with the exact address of every page recorded.
The approved redirect mapOld address, new address, reason for the choice. It doubles as a specification if another contractor takes over.
The before / after comparisonWhat was kept, what changed, what is still missing — in writing, including when the answer is not flattering to me.
What cannot be promised, and will not be promised here: a position in Google. It depends on Google, on competitors and on time — not on a contractor. What can be promised is narrower and it can be checked: no existing address dropped without a redirect, no staging site left indexable, and the state recorded before as well as after. Anyone who guarantees your rankings is promising something they do not control.
Cost
Quoted after the snapshot, never before
The cost depends on how many addresses are actually published, and that number is almost never the number in the menu. A site with six visible pages often has twice as many.
This work can accompany a Pierrafort rebuild or a rebuild done by someone else. In the second case the snapshot and the redirect map are handed to them, and the check after launch stays independent.
Send me the address of the site. The number of pages is measured first, the cost is given to you second, before anything begins. It commits you to nothing further.
Common questions
Before you decide
Can you guarantee my rankings will not move?
No, and nobody can: rankings belong to Google, not to a contractor. What is guaranteed is narrower and checkable — no existing address is dropped without a redirect, and the state is recorded before and after the switch.
What happens to an old page that has no equivalent?
It is redirected to the closest page by meaning, never to the home page by default. The choice is written in the redirect map and you approve it before the switch.
Is the after-launch check included?
Yes. The snapshot after the switch and its comparison with the original state are part of the work, along with thirty days of monitoring.
Do you need access to Google Search Console?
Not for the snapshot: it is taken from the public pages, exactly as any visitor's browser sees them. Read access helps with the follow-up after launch, but it stays optional and it stays yours.
First step
The snapshot comes before any commitment
Send the address of the site. The number of pages actually published gets measured, and then you know what we are talking about.
Ask for a snapshot