Should you update, redesign, migrate or rebuild your website?

Four ways to change a website you already have

Many pages that rank for “website redesign” are written by agencies, and most end the same way: redesign. Often that’s the wrong call. Plenty of sites need a weekend of updates, not a new look.

Before you spend money, name the job. There are four, from smallest to biggest:

1. Update. Same platform, same design. You change the copy, photos and prices, fix speed and phone problems, and keep plugins and PHP (the language WordPress runs on) current.
2. Redesign. Same platform, new look. Your content and your web addresses (URLs) stay the same.
3. Migrate. New platform, same content. You keep your URLs, or set 301 redirects for any that change, so you keep your Google rankings. See our website migration entry.
4. Start from scratch (rebuild). A new site with a new structure and often new URLs. The old pages are redirected to the closest new ones.

The rule we follow: pick the smallest option that solves your real problem. Each step up costs more, takes longer and puts more of your search traffic at risk. Our website redesign cost guide prices each option.

Eight yes-or-no questions that point to one option

Answer these about your current site.

1. Is the main problem old content, such as wrong prices, old photos or services you no longer offer? Yes points to an update. No, keep going.
2. Can you, or someone you pay, log in and edit every page today? No means you need access before any option. If the logins are lost for good and the old builder won’t help, that points to a rebuild on a platform you control. Yes keeps all four options open.
3. Is the site slow or awkward on a phone? Yes points to an update first: smaller images, fewer apps and scripts, current plugins. If the template itself is the cause, that points to a redesign.
4. Does the design look dated while the pages, menu and structure still fit your business? Yes points to a redesign.
5. Does your platform lack something you need now, like a real store, online booking, hundreds of pages or full code access, that no plan or app adds? Yes points to a migration.
6. Is your site on a builder with a low exit score, such as Wix, Framer or Square Online, and you want to leave? Yes means a move is really a rebuild, because the design can’t come with you. Plan redirects from day one.
7. Has your business changed so much (new name, new services, new customers) that you’d rewrite most pages anyway? Yes points to a rebuild.
8. Does the site get steady visits from Google? Check the Performance report in Google Search Console. Yes means you should favor the smallest change and keep every URL you can. No means a bigger change carries little search risk.

How to read your answers

Take the biggest option any Yes pointed to, then ask whether a smaller one would do. A Yes on question 4 alone is a redesign. A Yes on 5 or 6 is a move, and a Yes on 8 tells you to move carefully.

If you got Yes on several big ones, don’t do them all at once. Google recommends changing one thing at a time, so the domain, the platform and the layout each get their own step. Update first. If you are also moving platforms, move next and redesign once traffic settles.

When not to redesign

A redesign is a lot of work for a problem you might not have. Signs a fix is enough:

• The site already brings calls, sales or sign-ups. If leads come in, refresh what’s on the pages before you touch the layout.
• The complaints are about one or two pages. Rewrite those pages. A new template won’t fix a confusing pricing page.
• It’s slow because of what’s on it. Oversized photos, background videos, chat widgets and tracking tags slow down any template. Cut those first and retest.
• You’re tired of it, but customers aren’t. You see your site every day. Visitors don’t.
• A bigger change is coming soon. If a rename, new services or a platform move is on the way, wait and do the redesign as part of that project.
• You don’t know which pages matter. Check Search Console and your analytics first. Your top pages are the ones to protect.

Signs you need more than an update

Any of these points past an update:

• Old PHP on a WordPress site. WordPress.org recommends PHP 8.3 or greater. WordPress still runs on PHP 7.4 and up, but WordPress.org warns those older versions may expose your site to security problems. PHP 7.4, 8.0 and 8.1 have already reached end of life, and 8.2 gets security fixes only until December 31, 2026 (php.net). If your theme or plugins break on a current version, you need a new theme (a redesign) or more.
• You can’t edit it yourself. If every small change means waiting weeks on a developer, the site costs more than it saves.
• The platform can’t do what you need now. A page limit, a store item cap or a missing feature you can’t add with an app means the platform, not the design, is the problem.
• It fails on phones even after the easy fixes. Google’s “good” marks for Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the main content appears) of 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint (how fast taps get a response) of 200 ms or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift (how much the page jumps) of 0.1 or less, per web.dev. If your pages miss these after you’ve shrunk images and cut apps, the template or platform may be the cause.
• You don’t own the domain. If a former designer or the builder registered it in their name, fix that before anything else. Our domain transfer guide walks through it.

What each platform lets you change

How far you can go without leaving depends on your platform. The exit score is our rating out of 10 of how much of your site can leave with you; see them all in our exit scores tool.

Squarespace (exit score 5/10)

Squarespace has a version update tool that moves a 7.0 site to 7.1. It starts as a preview you can cancel and only becomes permanent when you click Publish update. It has limits: the template can’t be a discontinued one, developer mode must be off, sites over 150 pages are over the limit, and stores with over 200 products get an error. Album pages disappear, and header taglines, sidebar navigation and share buttons aren’t supported in 7.1.

On 7.1, you can’t switch templates. You change the look through site styles (colors and fonts) and page layouts. Version 7.0 sites can still switch templates. To test a new look safely, you can duplicate the site into a new trial site with its own billing plan; domains, Email Campaigns, orders, analytics and contacts don’t copy over.

Wix (exit score 3/10)

Wix says you can’t switch templates on a site you already created. Its route is to make a new site from the new template, then move your premium plan and domain to it. Much of the old site doesn’t follow: the design, premium apps, contacts, site members, Inbox messages, invoices and Stores. Business email and Wix Blog posts can be transferred (Wix help center).

Moving a Wix Editor site to Wix Studio creates a separate Studio branch that shares your dashboard data, but the design doesn’t carry over and has to be rebuilt. The live site stays as is until you publish the Studio branch, and after that you can’t republish the old Editor version.

Leaving Wix is a rebuild, not a migration. Wix says sites must run on its servers, and blog posts can’t be exported.

WordPress, self-hosted (exit score 10/10)

WordPress keeps design and content apart. A theme controls the look; your posts and pages live in the database. WordPress.org’s documentation says Live Preview shows an installed theme with your own content before you activate it, and warns not to activate a theme whose preview is blank. It suggests a test site, or staging site, for more thorough checks.

We build on WordPress every week. In our experience, a theme switch keeps your posts and pages, but menus, widgets and layouts made with a theme-specific page builder often need rework. Our template vs theme entry explains the difference. Check your PHP version at the same time.

Shopify (exit score 5/10)

Changing a Shopify theme is a redesign on the same platform. Moving to Shopify is a migration. Shopify’s free Store Migration app, built by Shopify, imports product and customer data from Square, WooCommerce, Etsy, Wix, Amazon, eBay, Clover and Lightspeed R/X (Vend). The theme still has to be set up on its own.

Shopify warns its URL structure likely differs from your old platform’s, so set up redirects before you transfer the domain. Its redirects work only from URLs that no longer load a page, and you can import up to 100,000 by CSV on standard plans.

Webflow (exit score 6/10)

Webflow can export your site’s code as a ZIP of pages, styles, scripts and images, but only on paid Workspace plans, such as Core Workspace at $19 a month billed yearly. Site plans alone don’t include it. The export leaves out CMS items, the store and checkout, and form handling, so it’s a static snapshot (Webflow help). CMS collections export separately as CSV.

Framer, Square Online and Hostinger

Framer and Square Online both score 2/10. Framer says it doesn’t offer HTML export for self-hosting, and we found no whole-site export in Square Online’s help center. Hostinger’s builder scores 3/10. On all three, leaving means rebuilding the design, though Hostinger can send pages, text and images to WordPress. Our guide to leaving your website builder lists what each platform exports.

Protect your Google traffic

A redesign that keeps every URL is low risk. A migration or rebuild that changes URLs needs care. Google’s guide to site moves with URL changes sets out the rules:

• Change one thing at a time. Google recommends moving the domain, the platform and the layout as separate steps, not combining a move with a redesign.
• Keep URLs when you can. Every unchanged address is one less redirect.
• Map every old URL to a new one. Start with the most important: pages in your sitemap, pages with the most traffic and pages other sites link to. Point each one at its closest match, not the home page.
• Use 301 redirects. Google says 301 and other permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank. Redirect straight to the final URL and avoid chains.
• Keep redirects for a long time. Google says to keep them as long as possible, generally at least a year.
• Expect some ups and downs. Google says visibility may fluctuate during a move, and a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more before Google starts showing the new URLs.
• Use Search Console. Submit the new sitemap and watch for “not found” errors. The Change of Address tool is only for moving to a new domain or subdomain, not for URL changes on the same domain.

If you’re only changing hosts and your URLs stay the same, Google has a separate, simpler process and says a short drop in crawling right after launch is normal. For the full move, step by step, follow our guide to moving your website. Before you change anything, work through the website redesign checklist.

Common situations and our call

A Wix site that ranks well but looks dated

Our call: redesign, and stay on Wix. Leaving would mean a full rebuild, which risks the traffic you’ve earned for a look you can get without moving. Restyle the pages you have, or build the new design on a duplicate site and move your plan and domain over. If any page addresses change, add 301s in Wix’s URL Redirect Manager, which allows up to 5,000 redirects and works only with a custom domain.

A Squarespace 7.0 site

Our call: update first, then try the 7.1 update tool. Run the preview, check the page and product limits, and only publish when you’re happy. If your template is discontinued or the site is over 150 pages, the tool won’t work, and a manual rebuild inside Squarespace is the fallback.

A WordPress site built eight years ago by someone who’s gone

Our call: get access, update, then redesign on WordPress. First recover the logins for the domain, the hosting and the WordPress admin. Then check the PHP version, back up the site and update plugins on a test copy. Most of these sites can keep their content and URLs under a new theme. A rebuild makes sense only if the content is badly out of date or locked inside a page builder nobody can edit.

A DIY site you’re embarrassed by but that gets no traffic

Our call: start from scratch. With few visitors from Google there’s little to lose. Pick the platform you want for the long run, write new pages, keep the domain and still redirect the old URLs.

A store that has outgrown its builder

Our call: migrate the data and rebuild the design. On a move to Shopify, the Store Migration app brings product and customer data from the platforms it lists, such as Wix, Square and WooCommerce. From others, such as Squarespace, import CSV files in the order Shopify recommends: products, customers, then orders. Set up a theme and redirects before the domain moves.

What to do next

• What a website redesign costs: each option priced, with 3-year totals for the platform you’d move to.
• Website redesign checklist: what to save before, during and after the change.
• How to migrate a website: the 10 steps for moving platforms without losing traffic or email.
• Exit scores: how much of your site can leave each platform.
• Deciding who does the work? Read builder vs WordPress vs agency.
• Glossary: website migration, staging site and Core Web Vitals.