Website redesign: when to do it, what it costs, and how to keep your rankings

Rebuilding your website makes sense when it is costing you customers: too slow on a phone, impossible to edit, invisible on Google, or simply out of step with who you have become. A redesign done properly costs about the same as a new site, and it doesn't cost you your rankings, on one condition: every old address must lead to the new one.

Here is how I go about it depending on whether you start from Wix, WordPress or an agency-built site, what it costs, and what protects your rankings during the switch.

Key points

• A redesign is decided on facts: speed on mobile, number of enquiries, whether you can edit the site yourself. Not on how old the design looks.
• The starting point changes everything: a Wix site gets rebuilt and redirected, a WordPress site gets exported and cleaned, an agency site depends on what you actually own.
• Rankings are kept with a URL inventory before, page-by-page 301 redirects during, and thirty days of monitoring after.
• Price: the price list of a new site, plus one to three days for the inventory, the content migration and the redirects.
• I rebuild in Next.js; if your team publishes daily, WordPress can stay behind the scenes.

When to rebuild: six signs that don't lie

1. It takes more than three seconds to appear on a phone. Test it with PageSpeed Insights: below 50 on mobile performance, you lose visitors before the first line.
2. You can't change a price or a photo without calling someone, or without fearing you'll break everything.
3. Enquiries have dropped while your business hasn't changed.
4. The site still says who you used to be: an offer you dropped, a town you left, a name you no longer use.
5. Updates are scary: plugins behind, a theme abandoned by its author, security warnings.
6. It isn't really readable on mobile: tiny text, a menu that overflows, a form you can't fill in with a thumb.

One of these signs can often be fixed without a redesign. Three or four, and the site needs rebuilding, not patching.

Redesign, or just a refresh?

There are three levels, and the word "redesign" often blurs them.

• The refresh: texts, photos, a few pages, some speed work. One to three days of work, no risk to rankings. The right choice when the structure is sound and the site loads properly.
• The visual redesign: new design, same structure, same URLs. Rankings don't move, because the addresses don't change. Only possible if the technology underneath still holds.
• The full rebuild: new structure, new technology, often new URLs. That's the subject of this article, and the case that needs the most care.

The choice doesn't depend on the site's age but on what's wrong. A slow site that can't be maintained goes to a full rebuild even if it looks nice; a fast but dated site gets away with a visual redesign.

Three starting points, three jobs

Wix, Jimdo, Squarespace

Rented page builder

• You own the codeno
• Content can be exported~partly
• Current URLs can be keptno
• Domain and email are yours~partly

The job

Recover texts and images by hand (the blog exports, pages don't), rebuild, then redirect every old URL one by one.

What to watch

The domain and mailboxes are often hosted by the builder: transfer them before cancelling, without a gap.

WordPress

Self-hosted site, theme and plugins

• You own the code~partly
• Content can be exportedyes
• Current URLs can be keptyes
• Domain and email are yoursyes

The job

Export pages, posts and media, clean up what plugins left in the text, rebuild while keeping the same URLs where they are good.

What to watch

Content made with a page builder (Elementor, Divi) comes out with its markup: it gets rewritten more than migrated.

Custom site by an agency

Code handed over, or not

• You own the code~partly
• Content can be exportedyes
• Current URLs can be keptyes
• Domain and email are yours~partly

The job

Recover the code and every login, audit what still holds up, rebuild the rest. The easiest case when everything is in your name.

What to watch

A site where you hold neither the code, the domain nor the hosting is rebuilt from scratch, sometimes without its domain name.

“Partly” means: possible, but with manual work or conditions. Wix URLs (/post/…, /blank-1) aren't worth keeping; WordPress URLs often are.

You're on Wix, Jimdo or Squarespace

You rent a site: the code isn't yours and can't be exported. The blog can be recovered; the pages are copied by hand. The URLs, of the /post/my-article or /blank-1 kind, aren't worth keeping; they'll be redirected one by one to the new ones.

The real issue is elsewhere. Your domain name and your mailboxes are often hosted by the builder: transfer them before cancelling the subscription, not after, otherwise the site disappears along with its addresses and you lose emails. This job is the most manual, but it holds no surprises: everything that matters is visible on screen.

You're on WordPress

The most common case, and the most comfortable. Pages, posts and images export, and clean URLs such as /services/plumbing/ can be kept as they are: for those pages, redirects aren't even a question.

Two things take work. Content built with Elementor, Divi or another page builder comes out with its markup: it gets rewritten more than migrated. And plugins often leave traces in the text (shortcodes, galleries, forms) that have to be replaced one by one. If your team publishes a lot, WordPress can stay behind the scenes as the editor, with the site served by Next.js; more on that below.

You have a custom site, built by an agency

It all depends on what you own. If the code, the domain name and the hosting are in your name, this is the simplest job: I audit what still holds, pull the content straight from the database, and rebuild the rest.

If you hold none of these, the redesign starts from scratch, sometimes without the domain name. Ask for them today, before you need them. In my quotes, the code, the domain and the hosting are yours from day one, for exactly this reason.

What stays, what goes

Before drawing anything, I list the existing pages with, for each one, the traffic it receives (Search Console, sixteen months) and the links it has earned from other sites. Three piles come out.

• Keep: the pages that bring visitors or links. They're carried over, rewritten if needed, and their URL is kept or redirected.
• Merge: the pages that say the same thing in three places, such as three posts on the same topic or two "about" pages. One page, more complete, with the others redirected to it.
• Drop: the pages with no traffic, no links, no purpose. They go cleanly, with a redirect to the parent page if there is one, otherwise a 410 response that tells Google the removal is intentional.

A redesign is the right moment to lose weight. A forty-page site that keeps fifteen, done well, ranks better than before.

Keeping your rankings

What Google has learned about your site is attached to addresses. Change them without warning and you start from zero; redirect them properly and everything follows. That's the whole difference between a redesign that moves you up and one that costs six months of visibility.

The rule fits in one sentence: every old URL redirects, permanently (code 301), to the page that replaces it. Not to the homepage. Google treats a mass redirect to the homepage as a disguised 404, and the visitor who was looking for your "prices" page doesn't find it either. When a page has no replacement, pick the closest one.

On a Next.js site, those redirects live in one file, versioned with the code and tested before go-live:

// next.config.ts (excerpt): each old address to its replacement, permanently
async redirects() {
  return [
    { source: "/our-services/web-design.html", destination: "/en/services/business-website", permanent: true },
    { source: "/news/:slug", destination: "/en/blog/:slug", permanent: true },
  ];
}

The rest of the set-up, in order:

1. 1Before

   The inventory

   • Full crawl of the current site: every URL, title and description
   • 16 months of Search Console: the pages that get clicks
   • Inbound links (Ahrefs or similar): the pages other sites cite
   • A decision for every page: keep, merge, drop
2. 2During

   The build

   • New structure; old URLs kept where they are good
   • 301 redirect plan, each old URL to a new one, never everything to the homepage
   • Titles, descriptions and structured data carried over, then improved
   • Preview site blocked from indexing
3. 3Switch day

   The switch

   • Go-live and redirects active at the same moment
   • 301s checked on the URLs that matter
   • New sitemap submitted, robots.txt checked
   • No domain name change on the same day unless unavoidable
4. 4Day + 30

   The watch

   • Search Console: 404 errors, excluded pages, coverage
   • Rankings of the main queries compared with the inventory
   • Missing redirects fixed
   • Old URLs stay redirected for at least a year

Two traps come up again and again. The preview site indexed by Google before the switch, which creates a duplicate of the whole site: it's blocked from day one. And a domain name change on the same day as the redesign: two upheavals at once, and Google takes longer to work out which explains what. If the name has to change, do it before or after, and declare it in Search Console.

A multilingual site adds a layer: the hreflang tags have to be redone for the new URLs, and the circle has to close in every language. I covered all of that in a separate article.

What a website redesign costs

A redesign is priced like a new site: the same price list, that is €3,000 to €5,500 excluding VAT for a five-to-eight-page business website, plus the work specific to a redesign: the inventory, the content migration and the redirect plan. Count one to three days depending on the number of pages, at €500 a day. A business website rebuilt from top to bottom therefore lands between €3,500 and €7,000 excluding VAT; a visual redesign, or a single page, considerably less.

What lowers the price	What raises it
Texts and photos that already exist, and are good	Many pages to migrate, or content to rewrite
A visual identity already defined	A multilingual site, or one that needs to become so
Clean URLs that can be kept	A shop, a members' area, payments
Access to everything: code, domain, hosting	A Wix site to copy page by page

The quote is a fixed price: set after the inventory, it doesn't move during the project. And as with a new site, the running cost afterwards is €250 to €400 a year, with no compulsory maintenance contract.

Why I rebuild in Next.js

A site generated ahead of time, served from a global network, with no exposed database and no plugins to update: it's faster, safer, and it's what I deliver. I explained why in detail.

There is one case where I won't push you to leave WordPress: a team that publishes a lot, often, without a developer, and that likes its editor. Then WordPress stays behind the scenes, for writing, and Next.js sits in front, serving the pages. And if your WordPress site is sound and only slow through neglect, a refresh may be enough. I'll tell you after the inventory, not before.

Frequently asked questions

Will I lose my rankings?

Not if the old addresses redirect one by one to the new ones and the pages that bring traffic are kept. It's normal to see positions move for two to four weeks while Google recrawls the site. A redesign done properly usually ends up above its starting point, thanks to speed and structure.

How long does a redesign take?

The schedule of a new site, plus the inventory and the migration: a few weeks for a business website, longer for a shop or a site with several hundred pages. What stretches it most, in practice, is the time your reviews take.

Should I keep the same URLs?

When they're clean and describe the page, such as /services/plumbing/, yes: no redirect is needed, and Google only sees a design change. When they mean nothing, such as /blank-1 or /?p=123, we take the opportunity to redo them, and each one is redirected.

Can I change my domain name at the same time?

You can, but I advise against it: two changes at once, and Google takes longer to work out which explains what. If the name has to change, do it before or after the redesign, with a change-of-address notice in Search Console.

Do I have to leave WordPress?

Not necessarily. If your team publishes a lot and likes the editor, WordPress can stay behind the scenes with the site served by Next.js. If the site is sound, a refresh may be enough. I say so after the inventory.

What happens to the links other sites made to my old site?

They keep working, because the old addresses redirect to the new ones, and they pass their value on to the new page. That's why the redirects stay in place for at least a year, and in practice for good.

My site is with an agency that no longer answers. What do I do?

First check what is in your name, the domain name above all. If it is, the site can be rebuilt and connected to it without the agency. If it isn't, the registrar has a recovery procedure, but it takes time: it's the first thing to start.

What next

If you're torn between a refresh and a redesign, send me your site's address with your message: I always start by looking at it. It's the starting point of my redesign and migration page, and you can tell me about your project: we talk for an hour, and you get a quote within 48 hours.