When should a website be rebuilt?

'It looks old' is not, on its own, a reason to rebuild a website. A rebuild costs money and, done badly, it also loses the place the site already holds in search. The decision should rest on whether the site is doing its job.

Four signs

First, speed: if a page does not open within a few seconds on a mobile connection, some visitors leave without waiting. Second, updating: if you have to call someone to change a price or a photo, the site is not really yours. Third, mobile: most visitors arrive on a phone; if the menu will not open or the form cannot be filled in, the site is half working. Fourth, security: plugins that have not been updated in years are the weakest part of the site.

An example

Arhan Turizm's site ran on WordPress with an off-the-shelf theme and a page builder, backed by eight plugins. Every page request occupied the database, and the page builder alone produced more than twenty-five style and script files. We built the new site so that it compiles to fully static HTML at build time: visitors receive a finished page, and with no code running on the server there is no login page or plugin vulnerability left to attack.

Rebuilding without losing ground

Redirecting old addresses to their new equivalents is the most forgotten step of a rebuild. A search engine knows your site by its addresses; if they change with no redirect, years of accumulated visibility start again from zero. Before launch, every address of the old site should be listed and matched to its new counterpart.

Rebuild or repair?

If the only problem is speed and the foundation is sound, a repair is enough. If the problem is content you cannot manage, a structure that does not fit your business or a foundation nobody maintains, a rebuild works out cheaper. Commissioning an audit before deciding shows concretely which one you need.