What influences the expiration date of a website?
Websites age due to changes in design trends, technology, and user expectations. In addition, for larger companies in fast-changing industries, the lifespan can be shorter than for smaller companies. Although a website does not have an exact expiration date, it is important to evaluate it regularly and consider renewing or updating it to ensure that it continues to be effective in achieving its objectives. What are the factors that influence the lifespan and what are the signs that the website needs to be replaced?
New design trends.
Web design trends are constantly changing. What is modern today can feel dated in a few years, but new design trends are actually the last reason for us to advise a client to think about a new website. An important exception to this is if you are active in a fashion-sensitive industry. Fashion is about aesthetics, trends and experience, an outdated or visually unattractive website immediately damages the image and gives the impression that the brand does not follow the trends, which can be disastrous in an industry that is so dependent on being ‘up-to-date’.
Technical developments.
Web technologies evolve at a rapid pace. New programming languages, frameworks, and security standards are constantly emerging, both at the web design and hosting levels. If either of these is not updated regularly, your site can become vulnerable to security holes, load slowly, or not function properly on new devices and browsers. And just like with a mobile phone, after a certain number of years it simply becomes unsupported. Apps are no longer updated and crash, it becomes slower, and security updates are no longer provided to older models. It’s the same with websites.
User expectations.
User expectations are constantly changing. A website that does not match current trends and needs can become less attractive. We have seen this with the advent of responsive web design, and with the transition from responsive to mobile frst web design. The number 1 irritation is a slow website. The e-commerce market in particular is extremely competitive. Users expect a seamless, fast shopping experience. If your webshop cannot compete in terms of speed, ease of use, payment options or current design standards, customers will quickly switch to the competition.
Search engine algorithms.
Search engines change their algorithms regularly. A website that is not optimized for these changes can appear lower in the search results. Google makes small changes to its algorithm every day, changes that you do not necessarily notice immediately, a few times a year there are “Core Updates” intended to improve the overall quality of the search results. Factors such as PageSpeed and accessibility, which previously weighed less heavily, can suddenly become crucial ranking factors, which has a direct influence on the “shelf life” of your site or shop.
Poor management.
Also a big, if not the biggest factor is management. We recently experienced this with a marketing agency that, without any consultation and under the guise of “if what I want works”, stuck to the idea that a separate plugin had to be installed for every tiny functionality. The result was that within 3 years (!) the shelf life was reached. Every plugin you install adds code to your site and increases the maintenance burden. If this is done without checking for quality, compatibility or necessity, it can lead to conflicts, security risks and performance degradation.
The signals.
If we understand the factors, we also know what the signals are. The website becomes slower, elements no longer work, or no longer work properly, visitor numbers, findability in search engines or the number of sales decrease. All in all, we can say that the end of the shelf life is in sight after about 5 years, provided that it is properly maintained. Good maintenance can indeed extend the lifespan, but even then it is not infinite. There will always come a time when the technical basis of the website simply no longer meets the requirements and can no longer be adapted to the demands of the time.