My agency redesigned my site and deleted all my content without warning

What actually happened

An agency redesign usually means one of two things. They either rebuilt the site on top of your existing one, in which case your old pages should still be there. Or they built a fresh site from scratch and replaced the old one entirely, which is when content gets wiped.

If they did the second version and did not copy your old pages across, your text, images, case studies, testimonials and blog posts are gone from the live site. They may still exist on a backup somewhere on the agency's computer. They may not.

The bit that should worry you most is that nobody warned you. A redesign is a big enough job that the question "what are we keeping and what are we cutting?" should have been asked in writing before a single new page was built.

Why agencies do this

It is almost always laziness, not malice. Migrating old content into a new design takes hours. Each page has to be copied, reformatted, checked, and reconnected to images. For a site with twenty pages and a few years of blog posts, that is a day or two of unglamorous work.

Starting fresh is faster. The agency builds five or six new pages, calls it the redesign, and ships it. The old content is not their problem because nobody asked them in writing to keep it.

The cheaper the redesign, the more likely this is what happened. A redesign quoted at a flat fee with no content migration line item is almost guaranteed to lose content.

What you have actually lost

It is worth listing this out, because some of it matters more than the rest.

• Customer reviews and testimonials - hardest to replace, because you would have to ask the customers again
• Blog posts and articles - these were almost certainly bringing in Google traffic, and that traffic has now stopped
• Case studies and project pages - photos of past work, written descriptions, client names
• Service pages with detail - the long versions that ranked, replaced by shorter marketing copy
• Press mentions, awards, certifications - things that built trust on the old site
• Page URLs - if old page addresses changed, every link to your site from Google, directories, and other websites now leads nowhere

That last one is the silent killer. Years of building up links to your site can be erased in an afternoon by an agency that did not bother to set up forwarding from the old addresses to the new ones.

How to recover your old content

Before you do anything else, go to web.archive.org and type in your domain. This is a free public archive that takes snapshots of websites over time. There is a good chance most of your old pages are sitting there, viewable and copyable.

Click through the calendar to a date before the redesign. You should see your old site, more or less intact. You can copy the text out of any page and save the images by right-clicking them.

It is tedious but it works. For a site with twenty or thirty old pages, expect a couple of hours of copy-paste to rescue the lot.

You should also check Google itself. Search for site:yourdomain.co.uk and see what Google still has indexed. Some old pages may still appear in results even if they have been removed from the live site, and you can click through to see what was there.

Then ask the agency directly, in writing, for a copy of the old site's database and files. They are obliged to give you anything that belongs to you, and your old content belongs to you, not them.

What to demand from the agency now

Send one email. Keep it factual and short. Ask for four specific things:

• A full backup of the old site as it existed before the redesign, including all content and images
• A list of all old page addresses that no longer work, and forwarding set up so they point to the closest matching new page
• Written confirmation of which content was deliberately removed and which was lost
• The cost of migrating the recovered content back into the new site, at no extra charge to you

That last point matters. They did the job badly. Fixing it is their cost, not yours. If they refuse, the redesign was not delivered to a reasonable standard and you have grounds to either claw back part of what you paid or take the work to someone else.

Most agencies will tell you the backup was "overwritten during the rebuild" and there is nothing they can do. Most agencies will also keep charging you the monthly retainer regardless.

How to stop this happening again

Before any future redesign, write down what you expect to keep. All blog posts. All testimonials. All service pages. All case studies. Send that list to whoever is doing the work and ask them to confirm in writing that everything on the list will be carried across.

Also ask, in writing, what happens to the old page addresses. The technical phrase is "301 redirects" but you do not need to use it - just say "if a page address changes, anyone clicking an old link should be sent to the new version, not an error page." That sentence is enough.

And ask for a copy of the old site to be saved before any new work begins. You should be able to download a zip file of everything as it was the day before the redesign started. If the developer cannot or will not provide that, find a different developer.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get my old website content back after a redesign?

Yes, often most of it. Go to web.archive.org and type in your domain - this free service stores snapshots of websites over time. You can copy text and save images from any archived page. It is slow work but recovers most lost content for the cost of an afternoon.

Was the agency allowed to delete my content without asking?

No, not without your written agreement. A redesign should preserve existing content unless you specifically signed off on removing it. If they wiped years of pages and reviews without warning, they delivered the job badly and you can ask them to fix it at no extra charge.

What is the worst part of losing old website content?

The loss of Google rankings and incoming links. Old pages that ranked in search results now return errors, which means traffic stops. Other websites that linked to specific pages on your old site now point nowhere. This can take months to rebuild.

Should the agency set up redirects from old pages to new ones?

Yes, this is standard work on any redesign. When a page address changes, anyone clicking an old link should be sent automatically to the closest new page rather than seeing an error. If your agency did not do this, ask them to fix it now - it should not cost you anything extra.

How do I stop this happening with the next redesign?

Write down in advance what you expect to keep - blog posts, testimonials, service pages, case studies - and get the developer to confirm in writing they will carry it all across. Also ask for a full backup of the old site before any new work starts.

How much should a redesign that preserves content cost?

Most small business redesigns sit between £600 and £2,000 depending on size and how much custom design is involved. Content migration should be included in that price, not added on. If an agency wants extra to keep your existing content, they are charging twice for the same job.