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Phase 1: Planning and inventory
The most common redesign mistake happens before the first design idea: no inventory of what the old site already delivers.
Phase 2: Content and SEO preparation
Rankings only survive a redesign if redirects and content are finished before launch day, not after.
Phase 3: Technology and quality assurance
Everything in this phase happens on staging, before the client reviews. The client should judge content, not find your bugs.
Phase 4: Client review and sign-off
The phase where redesign projects get stuck. With structured feedback rounds and a documented sign-off it becomes plannable.
Phase 5: Launch and the days after
After launch you find out whether the preparation from Phase 2 worked. These points belong in the first 14 days.
The five most common redesign mistakes
For context on why some points carry so much weight: these five mistakes cause most of the redesign damage that is painful to repair afterwards.
1Redirects forgotten, or pointed wholesale at the homepage
Every old URL without a 301 target loses its rankings and its backlinks. Redirecting every old address to the homepage is barely better: search engines treat it like an error. The redirect map from Phase 2 is the single most important SEO item on this list.
2The crawl block goes live
The staging noindex survives the move and the new site quietly disappears from the index. Sounds trivial — it happens to professionals, because in launch-day rush nobody thinks about one line in the settings. That’s why the point appears twice: as a task in Phase 3 and as a check in Phase 5.
3Well-ranking content gets sacrificed to the new design
The text-heavy old guide page doesn’t fit the airy new layout and gets cut to three paragraphs. The rankings leave with the content. Before any cut, check the Phase 1 inventory: what brings visitors gets rebuilt, not demolished.
4The review phase has no end
Without defined feedback rounds and a documented sign-off, launch slips week by week while new wishes keep flowing in. The date drifts, the budget tips. The countermeasures are in Phase 4 and in the sign-off workflow guide.
5Nobody looks after launch
The launch gets celebrated, the follow-up gets skipped, and broken redirects or crawl errors go unnoticed for weeks. The first 14 days after launch belong in the project plan, including the ranking comparison against the inventory.
Phase 4 without the busywork
The review phase is the only part of this list you can’t work through alone — your client has to play along. That’s exactly what bepeq is built for: the client reviews the redesign right on the page with no login, feedback rounds have structure and a deadline, and the sign-off generates the record automatically.
Start bepeq for freeRound 1 closed
14 notes · all done
Round 2 running
Deadline: 4 days left · 3 open points
Then: sign-off with a record
Deep dives for the critical phases
Website Feedback
The complete guide for Phase 4, from the first comment to sign-off.
Annotate a website
How the client pins review notes right on the staging site.
Website review tool
Run the client review as a structured round with a documented result.
Choosing a feedback tool
The 12 criteria as an interactive checklist.
About this checklist
Written by David Malewski, founder of bepeq (DAMA Solutions GmbH), based on real redesign projects with web, design and marketing agencies. The list keeps growing with new learnings. Last updated July 9, 2026.
Common questions about website redesigns
How long does a website redesign take?
For a typical business website, eight to sixteen weeks is realistic, depending on scope, the state of the content and how fast approvals come back. The biggest unknown is almost always the review phase. With agreed feedback rounds and deadlines it becomes calculable.
Will I lose my Google rankings in a redesign?
Not if the preparation is right: a complete redirect map, preserved content for pages that rank, and a clean new structure. Short-term fluctuations in the first weeks are normal. The real dangers are forgotten redirects and deleted content without a replacement.
What’s the difference between a redesign and a refresh?
A refresh renews the look while structure and platform stay largely the same. A full redesign goes deeper: new structure, often a new system, reworked content. For a pure refresh this checklist shrinks mostly in Phase 2; the review and launch items stay identical.
When should the site go live?
On a day with low traffic and the team fully reachable — classically Tuesday to Thursday morning. Fridays and days before holidays are risky: if a problem appears, the window to fix it is gone.
Do I need a staging site for a redesign?
Yes, without exception. The new site is built on a protected copy of the target environment while the old site keeps running. Only then can technology, content and client review be checked in peace, and only then does a rollback stay possible if launch day goes wrong.
Why do rankings still sometimes crash after a redesign?
In almost every case for one of three reasons: redirects are missing or point wholesale to the homepage, well-ranking content was shortened or deleted, or a crawl block from staging went live. All three are in this checklist because together they explain most of the damage.