Is my 10-year-old campground website hurting me?
An old site is not automatically a problem. An old site with wrong information, a broken phone layout, and no padlock is.
SHORT ANSWER
Probably, in six specific ways: it may not work properly on a phone, which is where most of your traffic is; it may lack the padlock, so browsers warn visitors before they see it; it may load slowly enough that people leave; it may show rates, hours, or a season that are no longer true; it may be built on software with known security holes; and it almost certainly lacks the structured data that puts a park in map results and AI answers. You can check all six yourself in about ten minutes.
Check these six yourself
- Phone. Open it on your own phone. Do you pinch to read it? Is the phone number tappable?
- Padlock. Look at the address bar. No padlock, or "Not secure", means visitors get warned.
- Speed. Time it on cell data, not your office WiFi. Over four seconds is a problem.
- Accuracy. Read your rates, hours, and season out loud. Are they current?
- Software. If it is WordPress, when was it last updated? An unpatched site gets hacked eventually.
- Structured data. Run it through our free checker, which tells you in a few seconds.
Which of the six matters most
Accuracy, by a distance. A guest who drives to a park that closed for the season three weeks ago, because the site said otherwise, is a bad review and a refund. A guest who books a 30-amp site because the page never mentioned the 50-amp upgrade is a lost upsell. Wrong facts cost more than ugly design, and they are the cheapest thing to fix.
What ages worst
Flash, obviously, which is simply gone. Then anything built before about 2015, because responsive design was not standard and those sites are unusable on a phone. Then any site on an abandoned WordPress install, which is a security incident waiting to happen. A plain HTML site from 2014 with accurate text and a working phone number is in better shape than a fancy 2016 site that no longer loads properly.
Repair or rebuild
If the bones are fine and the content is stale, fix the content. If it does not work on a phone, rebuild; retrofitting responsive design onto an old template costs more than starting over. If it is on abandoned software, rebuild, because the security risk does not go away with a new coat of paint.
Related questions.
How do I know if my website is mobile friendly?
Open it on your own phone. If you have to pinch and zoom to read anything, or the phone number is not tappable, it is not.
Does an old website hurt my Google ranking?
Indirectly. Google measures mobile usability, speed, and security, and old sites usually fail all three.
Is it cheaper to fix my old site or rebuild it?
Fix if the content is the only stale part. Rebuild if it fails on a phone or runs on abandoned software.
What is the fastest thing I can fix today?
Wrong rates, hours, and season dates. It costs nothing and it is what actually loses bookings.
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