When redesigning a large Web site, what's the best approach when rolling redesigned pages out gradually? Or should they be rolled out all at once.
We're well respected in our niche, have been around a long time, and have 5,200 pages on our site, but we have a minuscule staff. If we wanted to roll out redesigned pages gradually, should we post some sort of note to visitors as to why some pages look different from others? Or should we bite the bullet and not roll out any pages until redesign has been applied to al 5,200?
Clarification added 3 months ago:
To clarify based on questions that have been asked, we have 5,200 separate template files. The site is a static one. It is not on any kind of "framework/CMS like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Moveable Type." All page files have been in straightforward HTML for 15 years, and we are only now moving to CSS.
Good Answers (11)
James O.
IT Risk Manager - HR Solutions at Deutsche Bank
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I wouldn't redesign a large web site all at once. The risk of something big going wrong is too big. As Robert already stated, divide your web pages up into groups and then start redesigning all pages in one group, test, roll out the new pages into production and then begin redesigning the next group. I suggest you read Elliott Rusty Harold's book titled "Refactoring HTML" Although published in 2008, most of the information in the book is still valid.
Ben H.
Freelance Sitebuilder and Web Standards Advocate
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If you absolutely MUST stick with the templates you've got, then the best course of action is to place a notice and roll out pages in the order most-visited-first.
A bit of an "agile development" approach could probably work in your case. Shooting for 5,200 pages redesign with limited resources asks for trouble. Big projects hold many unknown elements. I would split the whole thing into smaller projects/releases. This way, you can deal with risks and changes on smaller scale.
As for user experience, it depends on the nature of your site. Hard to say, if you could do smaller roll outs based on functionality improvement or maybe based on content, graphical elements, etc..
Important thing to remember is that it is extremely risky trying to do everything at once on any software project.
Good luck
Ted H.
Small Business Web Developer
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Katharine, Are you talking about A Storied Career? That's a Movable Type site unless I am mistaken. Most of your pages should fall into a few categories - Feed / archive page, post, or static page. You may have additional custom pages.
I'd focus on getting each of those 'types' of pages looking great in your test region. You could then do spot checks of your most frequently-accessed pages before rolling it out. That would give you 80% of your needs for 20% of the effort.
To round out the last portions why not enlist your audience for help? You could put a call to action on a feature or header or sidebar notice asking readers to help spot-check your site with a prize for the readers who submit the top 3 most # of graphic discrepancies. This fills 2 needs: 1) You get a lot of testing done on your site for free and 2) You are cycling readers through your old content! Your page views will skyrocket!
You would pay an intern thousands to manually test all of those pages or you could enlist your audience for help all for the cost of an iPad to raffle off. And you'd make the expenditure back by way of the click-throughs.
John K.
Entrepreneur, User Experience Expert, Designer, Social Media Addict and Creative Director at kohactive
Do you actually have 5200 separate template files? Is this a static website?
If you're using a framework/CMS like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Moveable Type, etc. then you should only have a few templateable files that dynamically create the 5200 page site. Most likely you'll have a homepage, basic content page, contact, etc. In this case, you should roll out the redesign in one push.
If on the other hand, you have 5200 independent static pages, then I would seriously consider moving to a platform like WordPress, Drupal, Moveable Type, etc. Or build something more custom.
William T. C.
Facebook Marketing Expert with 1,100,000 Fans
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Roll out over a period of time. The search engines will penalize your website if done all at one time.
Brijendra C.
Human Resources at Dodsal E & C Pte Ltd
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Slow and section at a time will be a controlled way
If there are errors then whole site will be spared
Lyena S.
Web Optimization Analyst at Yo! Yo! SEO
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Katharine,
1. Roll out at once. I do not see any advantage of rolling out in batches. You will be creating more work for your small staff than necessary.
2. If it is also a redesign where pages moved from one directory to another, do not forget to implement 301 redirects for the pages which URLs changed.
3. Update your sitemaps and submit them to Google through Webmaster Tools
4. Wait a couple of days and run a 404 error report to see what pages are missing.
You've got quite a bit of content! I highly suggest that you get your content set up in a CMS framework like WordPress.org, and roll out at the change all at once. WordPress's interface is very intuitive and will require very little training to use. You can manage one template, instead of sifting through thousands of HTML pages. Rolling out the update all at once is recommended because users may be confused by the difference in look & feel from one page to another.
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Robin M.
Available PHP & MySQL Freelancer
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Redesigning 5,200 individual html files sounds like a nightmare!
What I may recommend myself, as a PHP developer, is that you could integrate those 5,200 pages into a "container" system. The way it works might be that a main index page is built using PHP. this is a single page, coded with the intention of allowing it to read in any number of individual HTML files, and split them apart, recombining them using a new layout with new header/footer etc. This would retain the same menu structure, page layout etc.
There are many clever programming techniques that could be used to automatically extract content from your html pages, and then rebuild them into a single, much more manageable system. This way, you wouldn't need to worry about restructuring thousands of files, but instead can focus on a more structured, smaller project, to bring a bit more dynamic management into the process.
Would you consider migrating to a CMS? Something you should definitely consider as it will likely save you a lot of development time in the long run. If you do migrate to a CMS, then the redesign should be rolled out all at once.
If you can't implement a CMS, if you can roll out a completely redesigned site on a development server, you'll be able to test the redesign to ensure everything works correctly. You can then rollout the new design all at once on your production server.
I'd avoid a gradual roll out, as a lack of consistency can hurt your credibility and will make the website more confusing to use.
More Answers (4)
Sally Z.C. O.
In need of Strategic Communications Solutions? Promotions? I can help!
This is a great opportunity for you to take a step back and decide what you want your website to do. Is it generating the leads it needs? If ecommerce, is it simple to operate the shopping cart? Too many companies use websites like online filing cabinets and dump everthing but the kitchen sink into them. Most think that they are doing their visitors a favour by having everything they need posted all in one handy-dandy place. But think of it this way, if you were making a sales call, would you bring a filing cabinet with you to the meeting and drop 5000 brochures, catalogues, privacy policies, legal documents, and other "important things" on their desktops? Of course not. If you are taking the time to re-design, I suggest you take the time to meet with someone who can help you to develop a web strategy. This does not have to me a long or expensive process and if you already have in-house resources who can do this, then great. Once you have the strategy. design a lay-out of what your site will look like and what it needs to do to accomplish the strategy. Once that's done you can take a look at your existring site, keep what's good, archive what you no longer need and develop a fresh design that meets your current business needs. Once the site is built, depending on the structure and size of the site, you may want to take an incremental, agile approach to rolling it out in sections. (I have only taken this approach when rolling out large sites for national corporations that had many other websites attached to it) but chances are, if you are using new technology, you won't need to. I would also suggest that once you have the design, you take the time to write up a good testing plan. Good luck with your site. Feel free to drop me an IM if I can help. Cheers.
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Alan C.
Owner at Alan Nuclear
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If the templates have significant variation, then don't worry about explaining the changes.
Alex G.
Marketing Ideas for Smart People
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For us the agile changes work great.
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Wallace J.
Multimedia Producer, i3D Programmer, Acrobat 3D PDF, Android App, Virtual World & iTV Design, Kindle, Nook & Sony eBooks
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Sugest a scratch rewrite rolled out all at the same time. 5,200 templates?!
