Rebuilding Hopelessly Outdated Websites: How AI Makes 70-Page Site Refactors Actually Affordable

The Train Wreck Problem

You know the site I'm talking about. Maybe it's yours:

• Built 10-15 years ago by someone who's long gone
• Runs on an ancient CMS or proprietary platform nobody remembers
• 50-70 pages of content, half of which are broken or outdated
• Doesn't work on mobile (or barely works)
• Takes 8+ seconds to load
• Backend is so confusing you're afraid to touch anything
• Hosting costs $200/month because it's on some specialized legacy server

The traditional answer? "Complete rebuild, $20-30k, six months." So you keep limping along with the old site because that's not in the budget.

What Changed With AI

AI didn't make this free. Let me be clear about that up front. Rebuilding a 70-page site still takes significant time and compute power.

But here's what AI did change:

Content migration and cleanup. The most time-consuming part of a rebuild used to be manually copying content page by page, cleaning up formatting, fixing broken images, and rewriting outdated copy. AI can handle 80% of this grunt work. I still review every page, but I'm reviewing and refining instead of doing it all manually.

Code refactoring. Old sites often have inconsistent structure, inline styles, and spaghetti code. AI can analyze the structure, identify patterns, and help convert it to clean, modern code. Again, I review everything, but the heavy lifting happens faster.

Responsive design conversion. Taking a desktop-only site and making it work on mobile used to mean rebuilding every template from scratch. AI can handle the initial conversion, and I fine-tune the responsive breakpoints and layout.

SEO preservation. One of the biggest fears with a rebuild is losing search rankings. AI helps map old URLs to new ones, maintain heading structures, and preserve SEO-critical content while improving readability.

What This Actually Costs

I've refactored 70+ page sites that were hopelessly outdated. The cost typically falls between a semi-static site and a full WordPress build - call it $1,200-$2,500 depending on complexity.

That's not cheap. But it's a hell of a lot better than $25,000.

Here's what affects the price:

How broken is the content? If your pages are mostly text that just needs reformatting, that's one thing. If half your images are missing, your copy is riddled with broken HTML, and your navigation doesn't make sense anymore, that's another.

How complex is the structure? A 70-page site with 5 templates is different from a 70-page site where every page is a unique snowflake.

Do you need new features? If you just want the same content in a modern, fast-loading format, that's straightforward. If you want to add contact forms, online booking, e-commerce, or other functionality, that adds time.

How much do you want to keep? Sometimes the best move is to consolidate. Maybe those 70 pages should really be 30 pages with better organization. I can help with that, but it requires more strategic thinking and decision-making.

The Process

Here's how a typical rebuild works:

1. Content audit (1-2 hours). We go through your existing site together and decide what to keep, what to update, what to consolidate, and what to kill. This is the most important step.

2. Structure planning (1 hour). We map out the new site structure, navigation, and page templates. I show you examples of what the layout will look like.

3. Rebuild and refactor (2-4 weeks). I use AI to handle the bulk content migration and code conversion, then I go through everything manually to fix issues, improve copy, optimize images, and ensure everything works correctly.

4. Review and revisions (1 week). You review the rebuilt site on a test domain, we make adjustments, and you approve the final version.

5. Launch and redirect (1 day). We set up proper 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones, move everything to production, and verify everything works.

When This Makes Sense

Rebuilding a large outdated site makes sense if:

• Your current site is actively hurting your business (slow, broken, embarrassing)
• You're spending serious money on legacy hosting or maintenance
• You have a lot of content that's still valuable but poorly presented
• You're losing mobile traffic because your site doesn't work on phones
• You want to preserve your search rankings but modernize everything else

It doesn't make sense if:

• Most of your content is outdated and should be scrapped anyway (just start fresh)
• You need complex custom functionality (might need full custom development)
• Your business has changed so much that the old site structure doesn't fit anymore

What You End Up With

After a rebuild, you get:

• Clean, modern code that loads fast (2 seconds or less)
• Fully responsive design that works on all devices
• All your valuable content preserved and improved
• Proper SEO structure with redirects from old URLs
• Easy-to-update system (usually semi-static PHP or WordPress)
• Hosting costs that drop to $10-30/month
• A site you're not embarrassed to send people to

Real Example: 70-Page Non-Profit Site

I recently rebuilt a site for a local non-profit. About 70 pages, running on HTML 4.0 (yes, HTML 4.0), completely outdated structure. No mobile support. Impossible to maintain.

We rebuilt the entire thing using modern HTML/PHP with config files for key information, making it easy to update contact info, event details, and other data that changes regularly. Built a small custom plugin to handle their events calendar.

The new site is light years ahead of where it was. Clean, fast, mobile-friendly, and actually maintainable. It's currently waiting to go live while they review everything.

I didn't charge for this rebuild given the nature of the organization, but if I had, it would have been around $1,500. AI did about 98% of the heavy lifting on content migration and code conversion. I handled the structure, custom plugin, config system, and quality control.

The Honest Truth About AI and Rebuilds

AI makes this work possible at a reasonable price. But it's not magic.

I still spend hours reviewing content, fixing edge cases, optimizing images, testing responsive layouts, and making sure everything actually works. The AI handles the repetitive grunt work. I handle the problem-solving, quality control, and strategic decisions.

If you've got a site that's limping along and you've been putting off a rebuild because of the cost, this is worth exploring. It's not free, but it's no longer prohibitively expensive.