What to keep when rebuilding your website

Find what customers and staff still rely on

A dated website can still contain a useful service explanation, a project that wins trust or a link customers use every week. Review those things before agreeing what the replacement will contain.

Start with the current pages, downloads, photographs, forms and links to other services. Ask the people who use them, including the office team answering enquiries and staff directing customers to information.

Then ask your provider to check the evidence available from search, website analytics and links pointing to the site. The visible menu will not necessarily show every useful address.

A page with little search traffic might hold instructions an account manager sends directly to existing customers. A prominent page might promote work you no longer want. Page views alone cannot settle either decision.

When tracking is missing or unreliable, record that gap. Check customer correspondence, staff knowledge and known external links rather than treating an empty report as proof that nothing uses the page.

This review feeds the new website's page plan. It gives each useful item somewhere to go, without making the old structure the blueprint for the new one.

Give each item a decision

Use four decisions, with a reason beside each:

• Retain what remains accurate and useful, including an existing address or external tool when it still suits the job.
• Update material whose purpose remains sound but whose facts, proof or presentation need changing.
• Merge overlapping material when one page can give customers a complete answer.
• Retire material that no longer has a useful or appropriate public role, after checking who still depends on it.

Keeping the information does not require keeping its old design. Equally, changing the design is no reason to change a useful URL.

Be specific about what survives a merge. “Combine the service pages” leaves room for useful instructions to disappear. Identify the scope, examples and customer questions the combined page still needs to answer.

An old project can remain relevant if it shows the kind of work you want. Check the account of your role, the proposed claims and permission to use the material. Replace an expired credential or inaccurate description; do not rewrite history to make the project sound current.

Where the existing site uses stock or generic images, separate those from genuine project material. In one of our kickoffs, the owner had recent work to supply while the site used filler imagery. Copying the existing image library would have missed the better source.

Our website content checklist covers collecting and clearing that material. Here, the decision is what it should replace or preserve.

Example rebuild inventory: a commercial cleaning company

This fictional company is rebuilding its site to win ongoing commercial contracts. Existing customers still need to reach their account team and use an external service portal.

The company keeps a short decision table, with responsibility and confirmation notes underneath it.

For this example, the decisions need the following people and evidence:

The operations manager checks the service pages and the information surviving the merge. The developer records the final addresses and tests the old links against them. A tick beside “content moved” would not confirm either task.

Before retiring the residential page, the account team checks whether current customers still use it. They confirm the aftercare information and its new location. The developer then records the appropriate treatment of the old address, rather than automatically sending it to the homepage.

The project lead checks the older project account. The marketing lead confirms the photographs' permitted use and approves the revised capability statement. The developer checks the resulting project and download links.

The account manager confirms which portal customers use and who controls its account. The developer checks that the new site's link reaches that destination. An authorised user verifies the intended customer task, without exposing customer records in the public project notes.

The office manager confirms the form recipient and reply details. A test enquiry must arrive where expected and be usable by the receiving team. Copying the old form's appearance would not prove that.

For the final row, the business owner identifies the domain account, IT contact and current service bills. The developer and IT provider agree what changes, what stays and when the old hosting can safely close.

Plan what happens to the old URLs

A URL is the address of a page or file. Customers can reach one through search, an old email, a saved bookmark, an advertisement or another website.

Keep useful addresses where practical. Where they change, ask your provider for a map showing the old address, its intended destination and the treatment required.

Google recommends permanent redirects for moved URLs and warns against sending unrelated old pages to the homepage. Several pages can lead to one consolidated page when that page genuinely replaces their content. If there is no relevant replacement, the provider should use an appropriate not-found response. Google's site-move guidance explains the technical treatment.

For the cleaning example, an old /office-cleaning-services/ address can redirect to the complete /services/office-cleaning/ page. The destination answers the same need. The retired residential page needs its own decision because an office-cleaning page would not replace it.

Have the provider test the old addresses, including important downloads, rather than only check links within the new site. Update links you control to their final destinations.

Google also cautions that rankings can fluctuate during a move. Careful preparation reduces avoidable mistakes; it cannot promise unchanged traffic or a fixed recovery date.

Check what sits behind the website before cancelling anything

Your domain registration, website hosting, business email and third-party services may be supplied separately or bundled together. Confirm the actual arrangement before changing accounts or cancelling the old service.

DNS is the set of records directing services associated with your domain. Website and email records have different jobs, as Cloudflare's DNS reference explains. Ask the responsible provider to preserve and check the email configuration when making website changes.

You do not need to edit those records yourself. You need a named person who understands the existing arrangement and can coordinate with the new developer.

An ordering widget needs the same practical attention. In one discovery discussion, the owner wanted to use an existing back-office ordering service rather than commission website commerce. The useful requirement was a connection to the established service.

For a rebuild, identify the tool's account owner and confirm the new website can use it. Check whether it relies on the old hosting. Test the intended task before removing its previous route. Check where any stored form submissions belong and how permitted records will remain accessible.

Provide access through the agreed secure method, with appropriate permissions. Keep passwords and private customer data out of the preservation sheet.

Agree the handoff before the old site is switched off

Your inventory should let the provider explain what will be preserved, what will change and how they will check it. Keep unresolved items visible, with a person responsible for finding the answer.

Before the switch, preserve the current content and relevant search and enquiry records. Have the technical provider confirm the applicable backup, transfer and rollback arrangements. A screenshot alone will not preserve a working site or its settings.

Agree who checks customer routes, downloads, form receipt, email and any connected tool on the live version. Ask who will review changed URLs, search visibility and unexpected errors after the move. Retain the old services until the responsible providers confirm they are no longer needed.

The website launch checklist develops those acceptance checks. The website measurement guide covers the later business review; launch approval and ongoing results are different questions.

For the wider planning sequence, use our guide to planning a service-business website.

With SOL, the website build is scoped around the pages, content and functions the business needs. Bring the current site and flag anything your customers or team rely on. We can work through what should stay, what needs changing and the transfer work to include.