Rebuilding versus refreshing, explained without the jargon

The version of this that works is simpler than the version most people imagine. Here is rebuilding versus refreshing without the vocabulary that usually surrounds it.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The short version

A rebuild is not always the answer. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Why people complicate it

Most of the confusion comes from tooling rather than from the idea itself. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets.

If the structure is sound, styling and content may be enough. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Where to go from here

Rebuild when the platform blocks what you need to do. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

The short version

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about rebuilding versus refreshing before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• A rebuild is not always the answer — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.