Keeping reviews and testimonials when you redesign

Testimonials are some of the hardest-earned words on your website, and a redesign is when they quietly go missing. Before the old site is switched off, copy every testimonial with its name, date and source, decide which ones still belong, check you still have permission, and make sure the page that held them keeps its address. Reviews on Google and other sites stay where they are; your new site should point to them, not copy them wholesale.

Where testimonials hide on an old site

Owners usually remember the Testimonials page. They forget the rest. Before the redesign, look in all of these:

The Testimonials or Reviews page, if you have one.
The home page, often in a rotating box near the bottom that shows one quote at a time. The ones you never see because the box has to cycle to them are easy to miss.
Service pages. A kitchen remodel page may have a quote from a kitchen customer that appears nowhere else.
Sidebars and footers on older WordPress sites.
A review widget pulling in Google, Yelp, Houzz or Facebook reviews. The widget may stop working once the old site goes; the reviews themselves are safe on those sites.
PDFs and images. Some owners scanned thank-you letters or posted a screenshot of a nice text message. Those are images, so a tool copying your text will not catch them.
Your inbox and your desk drawer. Thank-you emails and cards that never made it onto the site at all.

Make a simple testimonial list

Copy each testimonial into one document or spreadsheet with these columns:

The words, exactly as written.
The person's name as they agreed to have it shown: full name, first name and last initial, or first name and town.
Where it came from: email, card, Google, Facebook, a form on your site.
Roughly when it was given.
Which service it was about.
Whether you have their permission in writing.

This list becomes the source for the new site. It also protects you if the old site disappears earlier than planned. For the wider list of things to copy before the switch, see what to save before you replace your old website.

Which ones to keep

A redesign is a good time to prune. Keep testimonials that:

Mention something specific: the service, the problem, what happened. "Fixed our leaking skylight the same afternoon and cleaned up after" tells a reader more than "Great service".
Are about work you still do. A glowing note about a service you stopped offering confuses people.
Are still true. If a customer praised your Saturday hours and you no longer open Saturdays, cut that line or the whole quote.

Old testimonials are not a problem in themselves. A quote from a customer who has used you for fifteen years is worth more with its year on it, not less. But if every testimonial you have is from a decade ago, it is time to ask for new ones; our guide on getting and showing testimonials covers how.

Permission and honesty

Most owners never asked formally when a customer wrote something kind. A few practices keep you on safe ground:

If you have the customer's email or phone, send a short note: "We are putting together our new website. May we include what you wrote about our work, with your first name and town?" Most people are pleased to be asked.
If someone asks to be removed, remove them promptly.
Do not edit the meaning. Fixing a typo is fine; turning "pretty good" into "excellent" is not.
Do not invent testimonials or combine several customers into one quote.
If a testimonial came from a friend, relative or employee, or from a customer you gave a discount in return, that connection should not be hidden.

The Federal Trade Commission publishes guidance on endorsements and reviews at ftc.gov. If you have questions about your specific situation, ask your attorney.

Google, Yelp and other review sites

Reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, Angi, Houzz and similar sites belong to those sites and their writers. They stay put no matter what you do to your own website. The new site should:

Link to them. A plain "Read our reviews on Google" button is honest and always current.
Not copy them in bulk. Many review sites have rules about reusing their content. If you want to show a few, quote them briefly with the reviewer's name as shown and a link to the original. Our guide on showing Google reviews on your website goes through linking and embedding.
Not cherry-pick dishonestly. Showing your best reviews is normal. Writing "rated five stars" when your average is lower is not.

Keep the old page address

If your old site had a page at an address like /testimonials or /reviews, the new site should either keep that same address or forward it to the new reviews page. Customers may have bookmarked it, you may have printed it on a card, and search engines know it. A redesign that drops the page leaves anyone following those links on an error screen. Ask whoever builds the site for a list of every old page address and where each one will go.

Placing testimonials on the new site

Moving them is half the job. Putting them where they help is the other half:

One or two short quotes on the home page, near the phone number or the "get a quote" button.
A relevant quote on each service page: a roof customer on the roofing page, a gutter customer on the gutters page.
A reviews page with the full collection, plus the links to Google and other sites.
Skip the auto-rotating box. Most visitors see one quote and scroll past. Showing two or three at once, still, works better.

What to do this week

Open your current site and find every testimonial, including on service pages and inside widgets.
Copy them into one list with name, source, date and service.
Search your email for "thank you" and add the best ones you never posted.
Send a permission note to anyone you can still reach.
Write down the address of your current testimonials page so it can be kept or forwarded.

If you want to see your testimonials carried over and placed next to the work they describe, you can see your site rebuilt first and check every quote made it across.