What is the most important thing to update when you rebrand?

The 301 redirect map, if your domain or URLs change. Every old URL must permanently redirect to its exact new equivalent before launch — mapped one-to-one, not all pointing to the homepage. Skipping this is the single change that can wipe 40 to 60 percent of organic traffic in the first month, and it is the hardest to recover. Everything else (logo, signage, cards) is visible and easy to chase; broken redirects fail silently.

How long does it take to update everything in a rebrand?

Digital surfaces (website, social, email signatures, Google Business Profile) can flip in a single coordinated launch day if assets are ready. Physical items are the long pole: business cards take 3 to 5 days to print, and full vehicle wraps take 3 to 5 days per vehicle and often book out a week or two ahead. Plan for digital live on day one and physical fully replaced within two to three weeks.

Do I lose Google rankings when I rebrand?

Only if you change your domain or URLs without proper 301 redirects. A clean migration — one-to-one redirects, Google Search Console Change of Address, fresh sitemap, updated Organization schema — usually causes a temporary 2 to 6 week ranking dip that recovers. A migration without redirects, or one that dumps every page to the homepage, can cause a permanent loss because Google cannot pass the old pages' authority to the new ones.

Should I keep my old domain after rebranding?

Yes — keep the old domain registered and pointed via 301 redirects for at least 12 months, and ideally longer. Old links from press, directories, and backlinks keep sending traffic and ranking signals for years, and the redirect is what passes that value to the new domain. Letting the old domain expire breaks every inbound link at once and hands it to a potential squatter.

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The Rebrand Checklist: Everything You Have to Update When You Change Your Brand

By Gaëlle Lamirault · June 2026 · 8 min read

When you rebrand, you have to update roughly 40 separate things across five categories: digital (website, favicon, OG images, social handles, Google Business Profile), legal and financial (trademark, contracts, invoices, domain), physical (signage, packaging, cards), internal (templates, decks, Slack and email), and search/SEO (301 redirects, Google Search Console, sitemap, schema). The single most expensive mistake is changing your domain without 301 redirects in place — that can wipe 40 to 60 percent of organic traffic in the first month.

This checklist is the same one GLDS runs on launch day for clients across Paris and the GCC. Work top to bottom, assign an owner to each line, and do not flip the switch on a new domain until the redirect map is tested. Below are the items grouped so nothing slips through after the announcement.

Digital: your customer-facing surfaces

This is where most of your audience meets the new brand, so it has to change in one coordinated push, not over three weeks. Update the live website (logo, colours, type, copy) and replace the favicon in all sizes — 16x16, 32x32, 180x180 apple-touch-icon, and a 512x512 PNG for the web app manifest. Regenerate every Open Graph and Twitter card image at 1200x630 so links shared on LinkedIn and WhatsApp show the new mark, not the old one cached from six months ago.

Then the accounts: email signatures for the whole team (a single HTML template in Gmail or Outlook beats 20 people improvising), app store listings (icon, screenshots, developer name on the App Store and Google Play), and social profiles. List every handle explicitly — Instagram, LinkedIn company page, X, TikTok, YouTube, Behance — and decide whether you can claim the new @handle before you announce, because a username squatter will take it the day you go public. Finally, update the Google Business Profile name, logo and cover, since that is what shows in Maps and the local pack.

Legal and financial: the paperwork that protects the name

A new name is not yours until the paperwork says so. File the trademark for the new name and wordmark before launch — in the UAE that runs roughly AED 7,500 to 12,000 per class through the Ministry of Economy, and the EU equivalent (EUIPO) starts at 850 euros for one class. Do not announce a name you have not cleared, or you risk a cease-and-desist from a prior holder after you have printed everything.

On the financial side: update invoice and quote templates (legal entity name, logo, bank details if they changed), refresh contract and proposal templates, and decide the domain strategy. If you are keeping the same legal entity and only changing the trade name, your VAT registration and invoices may need the new name shown alongside the registered one — check with your accountant. Buy the new domain plus the obvious typo and .com/.ae variants, and keep the old domain registered for at least 12 months so the redirects keep working.

Physical: everything printed or installed

Physical assets are the ones people forget because they live outside the laptop. Walk the actual space: exterior and interior signage, reception wall, meeting-room plaques, and any illuminated sign that needs a sign-maker booked weeks ahead. Reprint business cards (a 250-card run is roughly AED 150 to 300), letterhead, and any stamped or embossed stationery.

Then packaging and field assets: product packaging, shipping boxes, labels, tissue and tape, plus uniforms, name badges and lanyards. If you run delivery or service vehicles, vehicle wraps are the slowest line item — a full wrap takes 3 to 5 days per vehicle and books out, so schedule it the moment the logo is final. A useful rule: anything a customer can photograph should carry the new brand by launch day.

Internal: what your team uses every day

If the team still opens a deck with the old logo, the rebrand is not done — it is half-applied. Rebuild the master templates first: the pitch and proposal deck (Google Slides or Keynote), the document and report template, the spreadsheet header, and the email newsletter template in Mailchimp or your ESP. One updated master saves you fixing the same slide 40 times.

Then the working tools: Slack workspace icon and custom emoji, Notion or Confluence workspace logo, Zoom and Google Meet virtual backgrounds, and shared asset folders so people grab the right logo file (ship SVG and PNG, light and dark, with a one-line do-not-stretch note). Send the team a single launch pack on day one so nobody is hunting for the new files in week two.

Search and SEO: the part that quietly costs traffic

This is the highest-risk category and the one most often skipped. If your URLs change — new domain, or a /old-path becoming /new-path — every changed URL needs a 301 (permanent) redirect to its exact new equivalent. Map them one-to-one; do not dump everything to the homepage, because Google treats a mass redirect-to-home as a soft 404 and you lose the ranking. Test the full map with Screaming Frog before launch and again the day after.

Then tell the search engines: add the new domain as a property in Google Search Console and use the Change of Address tool if the domain moved, submit a fresh XML sitemap, and update the schema.org Organization markup so the name, logo and sameAs links match the new identity. Last, fix off-site citations — your Google Business Profile, directory listings, and any NAP (name, address, phone) entries on aggregators — because inconsistent business names across the web dilute the trust signals that hold up local rankings. Expect a 2 to 6 week dip even when this is done right; done wrong, the dip becomes permanent.

Sequencing: the order that prevents a botched launch

Do these in waves, not all at once. Wave one, before announcement: trademark filed, domain bought, redirect map built and tested, new site staged. Wave two, launch day: site live, redirects switched on, Google Search Console and sitemap submitted, all digital surfaces and Google Business Profile flipped together so a customer never sees two brands at once.

Wave three, the week after: physical reprints arriving, vehicle wraps installed, citations cleaned up, and a crawl re-run to catch any redirect that broke. Assign one owner per category and one launch date — a rebrand that leaks out over a month reads as indecision to customers and confuses the search index, which is exactly the outcome the checklist exists to prevent.

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Frequently asked

What is the most important thing to update when you rebrand?: The 301 redirect map, if your domain or URLs change. Every old URL must permanently redirect to its exact new equivalent before launch — mapped one-to-one, not all pointing to the homepage. Skipping this is the single change that can wipe 40 to 60 percent of organic traffic in the first month, and it is the hardest to recover. Everything else (logo, signage, cards) is visible and easy to chase; broken redirects fail silently.
How long does it take to update everything in a rebrand?: Digital surfaces (website, social, email signatures, Google Business Profile) can flip in a single coordinated launch day if assets are ready. Physical items are the long pole: business cards take 3 to 5 days to print, and full vehicle wraps take 3 to 5 days per vehicle and often book out a week or two ahead. Plan for digital live on day one and physical fully replaced within two to three weeks.
Do I lose Google rankings when I rebrand?: Only if you change your domain or URLs without proper 301 redirects. A clean migration — one-to-one redirects, Google Search Console Change of Address, fresh sitemap, updated Organization schema — usually causes a temporary 2 to 6 week ranking dip that recovers. A migration without redirects, or one that dumps every page to the homepage, can cause a permanent loss because Google cannot pass the old pages' authority to the new ones.
Should I keep my old domain after rebranding?: Yes — keep the old domain registered and pointed via 301 redirects for at least 12 months, and ideally longer. Old links from press, directories, and backlinks keep sending traffic and ranking signals for years, and the redirect is what passes that value to the new domain. Letting the old domain expire breaks every inbound link at once and hands it to a potential squatter.