Redesign your website without losing useful content

Start a website redesign by inventorying existing content and published URLs. Useful service information, discoverable articles, and working inquiry paths should not disappear with a new design.

Decide what happens to each important page

Build a page list with available traffic, inquiry, and linking information. Mark what stays, gets updated, is merged, or is removed. Low traffic alone does not make a page useless if it serves an important specific need.

Include downloadable files, images, and forms. Content migration is more than copying body text.

Plan changes to published URLs

If a live page’s address changes, prepare an old-to-new URL map and required redirects with the provider. Redirecting every old page to the homepage does not replace a relevant content destination.

Google’s site-move guidance (opens in a new tab) covers URL mapping, redirects, and monitoring. It concerns changes to published sites; there is no need to invent a history of old URLs for unpublished drafts.

Test before and after launch

Request a checklist for key pages, internal links, forms, mobile use, and search-engine access. Establish who removes any preview restrictions from the published version and who monitors errors.

Keep a recoverable copy of the old material before switching. Agree on the launch owner, incident procedure, and follow-up monitoring. Name content inventory and migration work separately in the website quote so they are not overshadowed by the visual redesign.