Redesigning a website with a Flash or very old builder

If your website was made with Flash, iWeb, FrontPage, Adobe Muse or a similar tool that no longer exists, you cannot really redesign it in place. The tool is gone, and with Flash the site may not even show anymore. What you can do is rescue what is inside it, your words, photos and page addresses, and rebuild it on something current. That rescue is easier than most owners fear, as long as you do it before the old computer or hosting account disappears.

Which old tool built your site?

Knowing the tool tells you where your content is hiding. Some clues:

Flash. The site had animated intros, music, "Skip intro" buttons, or the whole site moved like a slideshow. The files behind it end in .swf. Browsers stopped running Flash in early 2021, so visitors now see a blank area or a message about a missing plugin.
iWeb. Apple's program for Macs, discontinued around 2011. Sites often have addresses with /Site/ or Page_1.html, and a "Made on a Mac" badge at the bottom. The site may still show, but you can only edit it on an old Mac with iWeb installed.
FrontPage, Expression Web, early Dreamweaver. Microsoft and Adobe desktop programs. Addresses end in .htm or .html, and folders sometimes start with _vti_. The pages may still work but cannot be edited sensibly anymore.
Adobe Muse. Adobe stopped supporting it in 2020. Sites often have very precise, poster-like layouts that fall apart on phones.

If you are not sure, ask whoever set it up, or right-click a page on a computer and choose "View page source". Old tools often leave their name near the top.

What still works, and what does not

A site made with iWeb, FrontPage or Muse often still shows in a browser. The files sit on a hosting account and the browser reads them. The problems are that you cannot edit it without the original program on an old computer, it does not adapt to phones, it usually lacks the padlock (HTTPS), and the hosting account may be on a plan nobody has looked at in years.

A Flash site is in worse shape: it shows nothing at all to most visitors. If your home page is Flash, customers see a blank screen. That is an emergency, and worth fixing before anything else on your list.

Rescue the words

Your text is the most valuable part, because it is in your voice and describes your actual business. Where to find it:

On the live site, if it still shows. Open each page, select all the text, and paste it into a document with the page name at the top.
On the old computer. Programs like iWeb, FrontPage and Muse saved a project file. If you still have that machine, do not throw it away until the rescue is finished. A helpful relative can copy the project folder to a USB stick.
In the hosting account. The site's files sit there. Someone comfortable with a file manager can download the whole folder. Even if you cannot edit them, the text inside can be read.
In the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a public archive of old web pages. Search for your address there and you may find old versions of your pages, sometimes including Flash-era text.
On paper and elsewhere. Brochures, flyers, quote templates, your Google Business Profile description, an old Yellow Pages ad. Much of a small business site was often written from these in the first place.

For Flash sites, text is often locked inside the animation file and hard to extract. Steps 2, 4 and 5 are usually the realistic sources.

Rescue the photos

Photos on old sites are usually small, because they were sized for the screens of the time. Look for the originals first:

The old computer's Pictures folder or the site's project folder.
Old emails where you or a photographer sent them.
Your phone's photo library and any cloud backup.
Your Facebook page and Google Business Profile, where you may have posted the same photos.

If the web copy is all that survives, save it anyway. A small photo of your real work is still better than a stock photo. Collecting photos for your website redesign has more places to look.

Rescue the page addresses

Old sites often have addresses like /services.htm, /Site/About_Us.html or /index2.html. Google may still list them, customers may have them bookmarked, and other sites may link to them. Make a list of every page address you can find, from the menu, from the hosting account's file list, or by searching Google for site:yourcompany.com.

When the new site launches, each of those addresses should forward to its matching new page. Then nobody who follows an old link ends up at "page not found". What to save before you replace your old website covers the full list to keep.

Find the domain and hosting before you rebuild

Very old sites often sit on accounts that are themselves old: a hosting plan paid by a card that expired, a domain registered by a long-gone web person, an email login nobody remembers. Before you rebuild:

Look up the domain at lookup.icann.org to see which registrar holds it and when it expires.
Find the login to that registrar. If it is lost, start recovery now; it can take days.
Check whether your email runs through the same old hosting account. If it does, plan the email move carefully before cancelling anything.

Rebuild on something current

Once you have the words, photos and page list, any modern option works: a builder you edit yourself, a designer, or a service that rebuilds from your existing content. Whatever you choose, the new site should adapt to phones, have the padlock, let you or someone you trust change hours and photos easily, and keep or forward the old page addresses. Redesign or start over helps you sort which old pages are worth carrying across.

What to do this week

Work out which tool built your site.
Open it on your phone. If it is blank, treat this as urgent.
Copy every page's text into a document.
Find the original photos, and keep the old computer until you are done.
List every old page address you can find.
Locate the domain and hosting logins.

If the old site still shows in a browser, you can see your site rebuilt first from what is on it, and check the result on your phone before deciding anything.