Website Redesign Guard.
Keep the important bits.

The free command-line tool captures source HTML, follows bounded redirects and compares the replacement against the original. It is useful for WordPress redesigns and other websites where important pages and enquiries need to survive a change.

• Missing pages and old routes that do not redirect to their mapped destinations.
• Redirect loops, chains and unexpected homepage redirects.
• Production noindex directives, conflicting titles and unexpected canonicals.
• Contact links or enquiry forms no longer found in the fetched HTML.
• Selected broken images, fetched internal links and form labels that need review.
• Planned page retirements and approved changes, kept distinct from mistakes.

Start while the original site is still available. Capture a snapshot with the command-line tool, then compare the replacement. It requires Node.js 22 or later and no paid API or WordPress administrator account.

node bin/guard.js snapshot --url https://old.example/ --out reports/before.json
node bin/guard.js compare --before reports/before.json --url https://new.example/ --out reports/redesign.html

Keep your reports private when they contain private staging content. The checker makes only read-only HTTP requests, respects robots restrictions and does not submit forms or change a website.

The tool checks fetched HTML; it does not execute your website’s JavaScript. A form that appears only after scripts run may need manual review. Finding an enquiry form does not prove that the enquiry saves or the email arrives.

A clean report also needs checks for keyboard access, mobile layouts, payments where relevant, analytics, backups and real enquiry delivery. It does not guarantee rankings, indexing, accessibility compliance or conversion improvements.

The interactive demo can compare two JSON snapshots and an optional changes configuration in your browser. Selected files are not uploaded to EWB. The comparison runs inside an isolated frame, which keeps its file inputs separate from the parent website’s chat and tracking scripts.

The command-line tool runs on your computer. It does not send reports or captured content to Essex Website Builders. The public examples contain fictional websites, not client or visitor records.

Website Redesign Guard is a free, MIT-licensed project maintained by Essex Website Builders. Its focus is practical: evidence, clear next steps and the details that can get missed between an old website and a new one.

Planning a redesign and want a second pair of eyes?