WebsiteDesignOutsource.com blog
URL Preservation in an Outsourced Website Design Brief
The route decisions an outsourced website design team should receive before changing pages on an existing site.
Changing a page design can accidentally change the address that people and search engines already use. A URL preservation brief makes route decisions part of design planning.
Inventory before redesign
List current routes, page purpose, owner, and any known links or campaigns that depend on them. Mark routes that must remain stable. A design team should not infer that an old URL is safe to remove because its page looks dated.
Separate design from address changes
If a route must change, record the reason, destination, redirect owner, and review evidence. If the route stays, say so explicitly in the page brief. This keeps a visual refresh from silently becoming a migration project.
Include canonical and sitemap checks
The handoff should identify the intended public URL and ask for a review of canonical links, internal links, and sitemap inclusion. The outsourced website design team can surface mismatches, while the site owner approves the final route map.
Preserve the decision history
Return the inventory, approved route map, redirect notes, and affected page list with the source files. When a later redesign begins, that record gives the next team a starting point instead of a guess.
Treat routes as product decisions
For each existing URL, record its purpose, owner, inbound dependency, keep-or-change decision, and evidence for any redirect. Review canonical and sitemap behavior after the design is mapped, not only after launch. A route inventory lets the outsourced website design team improve the page without accidentally turning a visual refresh into an unplanned migration.