Website Refresh or Rebuild: Fix the Old Site or Start Again?

Refresh the website you have if it still works on a phone and you can edit it yourself. Start again if you can't log in, if it falls apart on a phone, or if it sits on a platform you can't take it away from. Plenty of embarrassing small business sites are the first kind: tired words and old photos on a build that's fine underneath. The rest of this guide is how to tell which one you've got, before you spend anything in the new year.

Should I refresh my website or start again?

Refresh it if the problem is how it reads, and start again if the problem is how it's built. A refresh here means changing what's on the pages: the words, prices, photos, opening hours and contact details. A rebuild means a new site, with new pages and usually a new platform, that may reuse your old words but not the old structure.

The trap is judging by looks alone. A site can look dated and be perfectly sound, and a site can look fine on a laptop and be unusable on the phone a customer is holding. So run two quick checks before deciding anything: open every main page on your own phone, and try to log in and change one sentence. Those two answers settle most cases.

Which signs point to a refresh, and which to a rebuild?

Content problems point to a refresh. Structure, access and platform problems point to a rebuild. Go down this list with your own site open and count which column you land in more often:

If everything you ticked is in the top three rows, you probably don't need a new website. You need an afternoon, a few new photos and someone to read the pages back to you. One tick in the bottom four is worth taking seriously, because those are the problems a tidy-up can't reach.

For the phone check, the guide on how to tell if your website is mobile friendly walks through what "broken on a phone" actually looks like, row by row.

What can you fix without starting again?

More than most people expect, and often for nothing but your own time. On a site you can edit, these are worth doing before you price anything bigger:

• Rewrite the first screen of the homepage. Say what you do, where you do it, and how to get in touch, in words a customer would use.
• Check every price, phone number and opening time. A wrong number costs more than an old-fashioned design.
• Replace the worst photos. Recent pictures of your own work, taken in daylight on a decent phone, say more than stock images do.
• Delete pages nobody needs. A news page last updated years ago makes the whole site look abandoned.

If someone else built the site and you pay them a monthly fee, ask what that fee covers before paying anyone extra. Some care plans include updating words and photos, and it's worth finding out whether yours does.

When is starting again the honest answer?

When the thing that's wrong can't be fixed from inside the site you have. The clearest case is a site you can't edit at all, because every change has to go through a person who no longer answers. The next is a site built before anyone designed for phones, where adding a mobile layout means rebuilding most of it anyway. The third is a platform that won't let you export your pages, so you're tied to it however unhappy you are.

Before you decide, find out what you own and what you can take with you. The guide on who owns your website splits that into the domain, the words and photos, and the site itself, because the answer is often different for each one. If you're leaving a provider, the guide to switching website company covers notice, content and domain in order.

A message to send your current web company first

If someone else built or looks after the site, ask before you decide. Copy this, fill in the gaps and send it:

Hi, I'm planning some changes to the website in the new year and want to understand what I've got before I decide. Could you tell me: who the domain is registered to; whether I have a login that lets me change words and photos myself; whether the site can be exported if I ever move it; and what my monthly fee currently covers? Thanks.

The replies tell you most of what this guide can't. A quick, clear answer is a good sign about the relationship as well as the site. No answer at all is an answer too.

Does a rebuild hurt your Google ranking?

Not by itself, but changing page addresses without redirects can. Google's own guidance on moving a site says that "301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank", and that "it's important to map your old site's URLs to the URLs for the new site". In plain terms: list every old page, decide which new page replaces it, and have the old address send people there automatically.

The same guidance advises planning changes "one after the other, not everything at the same time". For a small business that's a useful brake. If you're rebuilding the site, keep the same domain name unless there's a real reason to change it, and make the two changes in separate steps if you're doing both. The guide on redirecting an old website to a new domain covers that case properly.

What a rebuild costs, and how to compare it

Prices vary too much between a DIY builder, a freelancer and a studio for any single figure to mean much, so compare quotes on what's included rather than the headline number. The hub on website costs and choices sets out what each route actually buys, and the honest trade-off: a DIY builder is genuinely cheaper if you have the time to do it yourself.

If you'd rather see a replacement before committing to one, that's how we work. We build your whole website for free, you look round it, and you only pay if you want to keep it: setup from £495, then from £69 a month. If none of the rebuild signs above apply to you, a refresh is the better answer, and you don't need us for it. If they do, tell us about your business and see the new version on your own phone first.

Frequently asked questions

Will a new website lose my place on Google?

Not because it's new. The risk is the page addresses changing without redirects from the old ones, so whoever builds the new site should map each old address to its new one before it goes live. Keeping the same domain name makes that much simpler.

Is January a good time to replace a website?

It can be, if the season is over and you have room to breathe. Nothing about the calendar makes a site work better, though. Pick a quiet stretch for your own business, because you'll need a few hours to read the new pages and check the details.

Can I keep my domain name if I start again?

Usually, yes, as long as the domain is registered in your name or your business's name. Check who holds it before you change anything else, because that answer decides how smooth the rest of the move is.