Before redesigning a website, list the existing pages and decide what each one should become. Keep useful material, improve weak answers, merge genuine duplicates and remove obsolete content with a clear plan. Record the evidence and destination for every decision so the redesign does not quietly discard valuable information.
Start with an inventory, not a blank document
A redesign can make the old website feel disposable. That is risky. It may contain project details, customer explanations, useful downloads or pages that people still reach through saved links.
Collect the current URLs, page titles and content types. Include articles, campaign pages, PDFs and other documents linked from the site. Ask colleagues about pages used in proposals or customer support, because those may be important even when public traffic is modest.
A crawl helps identify linked pages, but it is not the whole inventory. Compare it with the content management system, available search data and any maintained list of campaign URLs.
Give each page a clear purpose
Write a short description of the question or task each page serves. If you cannot explain why a page exists, investigate before deciding its future.
For an illustrative building business, an old project page may explain work on a listed property. Its photographs and scope could still be useful even if the design is dated. A page advertising a service the business no longer provides needs a different decision.
Use a working sheet with these columns:
- Current URL and title.
- Purpose and intended reader.
- Content owner and accuracy check.
- Evidence of use, including search visits or sales use where available.
- Keep, improve, merge or remove.
- Proposed destination and required action.
Keep evidence separate from opinion. “The owner dislikes the layout” is a design observation. It does not show that the underlying information is unhelpful.
Decide what to keep and improve
Keep content that remains accurate and answers a worthwhile question. It may need new formatting, a clearer introduction or better links without requiring a new URL.
Improve content where the purpose is sound but the explanation is incomplete. Ask what the reader still needs to know. Missing scope, dated screenshots, broken downloads and unsupported claims are specific editorial jobs.
Assign those jobs to someone. “Review later” is how old problems arrive in a new design wearing a different font.
Merge overlapping pages carefully
Two pages mentioning the same subject are not automatically duplicates. One may explain a service while another answers a practical question about using it. Compare the intended task and the actual content.
Where two pages genuinely do the same job, choose a destination and preserve any useful material from both. Check links and references before retiring the other URL. Our guide to handling duplicate pages explains the technical choices in more detail.
A merged article should read as one coherent piece. Pasting two introductions and both sets of headings together rarely produces a better answer.
Plan what happens to old URLs
When a page moves, record its replacement. Google’s guidance on site moves recommends mapping old URLs to appropriate new destinations and implementing the corresponding redirects.
A relevant replacement matters. An old project page should not automatically send everyone to the homepage because it is convenient. If there is no equivalent content, ask the developer to agree the correct handling rather than inventing a misleading match.
Keep the inventory available during testing. It should be possible to check each important old URL and confirm that it reaches the intended content, rather than merely returning some page without an error.
Check accuracy and ownership
Ask the relevant person to verify claims, dates, qualifications, service coverage and image permissions. Do this before the content is loaded into the new design.
Give continuing content an owner and a sensible review trigger. A service page may need review when the offer changes. A technical guide may need review when its source platform changes. A project record needs accurate attribution and permission.
Do not treat the inventory as a one-off spreadsheet nobody opens again. It can become the simplest record of what the website contains and who is responsible for it.
Use the completed inventory to inform your website brief. It gives the designer and developer a clearer scope than “carry over the good bits”. Our website design service can help turn those decisions into a practical page structure.