On the afternoon of 28 October we opened the preview homepage. The first line read "Commercial HVAC controls".
Four samples sat on the desk. Mechanical capillary thermostats for deep fryers and ovens, 30 to 300 °C, 32 A contacts.
The homepage was selling something the boxes did not contain.
We rebuilt the site that afternoon. Twelve old pages and nine language versions went into the bin. The new site has 17 pages and went live the same evening.
Rewrite or rebuild: five checks
A rewrite is cheap. A rebuild costs a day. Five facts decide which one you need.
| Check | A rewrite is enough | You need a rebuild |
|---|---|---|
| Product category on the first screen | Wrong words, right category | The page names another industry |
| Models and specs on product pages | A few fields missing | The models do not exist |
| Certification claims | Adjectives are too strong | You claim certificates you do not hold |
| Navigation structure | Existing sections fit | Sections were built for another industry |
| Language versions | One or two need edits | Every language translates the wrong content |
Three hits out of five, and better copy only makes the error read more smoothly. We hit all five.
The error sat in four layers
Product category came first. The old site described building automation, heat pumps and fan coils. The product is a knob thermostat for commercial kitchen equipment.
Specs came second. BACnet, Modbus, Wi-Fi and 24 VAC appeared on the homepage and product pages. None of the four models supports them.
Certification came third. The old site listed a UL and IEC route. The reports were not in hand. The new pages say confirmed to order, and list only documents we can produce.
Structure came fourth. Broad sections such as Capabilities and OEM Process could not hold four concrete models. The new site has a product index, four model pages, an applications page and a customization page.
Product first, pages second, design last
Four models live in one data file. Pages are generated from it. The template cannot invent a parameter.
| Model | Range | Rating | Construction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wide range | 50–300 °C | 32 A / 250 V | Capillary and bulb, metal bracket |
| Standard | 30–110 °C | 32 A / 250 V | Black knob, side terminals |
| Ceramic switch | 30–110 °C | 25 A / 250 V | Ceramic switch body |
| Cooking range | 60–200 °C | 32 A / 250 V | Common cooking band |
Unknown values stay unknown. Shaft length, bulb diameter, mounting holes and terminal assignments show "Confirmed to drawing" until the customer returns the parameter sheet.
That phrase looks like a shortcut. It is a guard rail. The most common failure in an export site is turning "probably" into "definitely". The buyer checks the page against the crate, and a mismatch becomes a refund.
Pages come next. One sentence on the homepage, a comparison table on the product index, one page per model, one applications page, one customization page, one quality page. Seven items in the navigation.
Design comes last. Graphite, paper grey and brass, product photos at full width, a layout borrowed from industrial parts catalogues. None of it rescues the first two steps.
Cutover: change a pointer, not the files
The build went to a versioned folder in object storage first. 44 files, 2.5 MB. Every file was compared against the local copy: homepage, sitemap, robots, redirect table, four product photos.
Then we changed one pointer file. The edge worker reads the pointer, then serves that version folder. Pointing it back is the rollback. Old objects stay in place.
Post-cutover checks:
- 17 page paths returned 200
- 4 old URLs returned 301, including /capabilities/ and /products/thermostats/
- Unknown paths returned a real 404
- The sitemap listed 15 indexable URLs
- 2 draft pages stayed noindex
No maintenance window, no holding page. Visitors saw new content, not an outage.
Old URLs deserve their own paragraph. The usual mistake is deleting them. Rankings and backlinks go to zero with the path. All four old paths now 301 to their replacements, and the paths themselves did not change.
The cache lesson
The homepage flipped within about 60 seconds. Some old responses still carried a four-hour cache header.
The purge script returned 401. The current token has no cache purge permission, so the purge had to be clicked in the dashboard.
Add one line to the launch checklist: confirm who can purge the cache. Without that permission, launch waits four hours. So does a rollback. Moving the pointer back is easy. The edge keeps serving what it already has.
What is still open
The RFQ form is live. Empty fields return 422, a valid submission returns 201, and the record lands in object storage where the admin panel can read it. The sales notification email is not connected. Enquiries are not lost, but nobody hears about them immediately.
Nine languages wait for the English copy to settle. Duplicating the site to six domains stays frozen until one site works end to end.
The customer parameter sheet has not arrived. Dimensions, certificates and the English datasheet stay blank, and the pages say confirmed to drawing.
Where this does not apply
This approach fits B2B sites with few SKUs, custom parts and high order values. Four models, one day.
A catalogue with a thousand SKUs needs bulk import and rule-based validation. Hand-rebuilding 17 pages teaches you nothing about that.
FAQ
The site describes the wrong product before launch. Rewrite or rebuild?
Rebuild when the category is wrong. Missing specs can be added and navigation can be adjusted. If the category is wrong, every sentence works against you.
Do we need a new domain after a rebuild?
No. Keep the paths and add 301s. Changing the domain resets rankings, backlinks and customer bookmarks, and you have to verify Search Console again.
Is downtime required on cutover day?
No. Upload the release, verify every file, then change one pointer. Pointing back to the previous release is the rollback.
Can 17 pages be rebuilt in one day?
Yes when the assets exist. The bottleneck was photo processing and missing parameters, not writing pages. Unknown values stay marked as confirmed to drawing.
Last updated: 2026-10-29