Is your business website out of date? Ten signs you can check yourself.
An out-of-date website usually still loads, so nobody notices. The signs are slow pages on a phone, software past its support date, a team that can't make a simple change and details that stopped being true. Here are ten you can check yourself, and what to do about them.
Your website can fall years behind and still look fine on the screen in your office. It loads. The logo's right. Nobody complains. Meanwhile a buyer opens it on a phone between site visits, waits for it to load and moves on to the next firm on the list.
Buyers do more of their homework alone than they used to. In March 2026 Gartner reported that 67% of the 646 B2B buyers it surveyed would rather buy without a sales rep. So more of a buyer's checking happens on your website before anyone calls you. Here are ten signs it's letting you down, each with a way to check it yourself.
Ten signs your website has fallen behind.
1. It's slow on a phone
Google measures speed with three numbers it calls Core Web Vitals. The main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should react to a tap within 200 milliseconds and nothing should jump around as it loads, according to Google's guidance. In August 2026 only 53% of websites met all three on phones, going by the HTTP Archive's report on real Chrome visits.
How to check: enter your address in PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile result. We explain the three numbers in is a slow website costing you inquiries.
2. It's awkward to use on a phone
Google now reads the phone version of your site to decide what's on it. When it finished that switch in October 2023, it said a mobile page needs to be as complete as the desktop version. If your mobile pages leave out text, tables or downloads that the desktop pages have, Google may not count them.
How to check: open your five most important pages on your own phone. Find the phone number, read a project page and send the contact form.
3. Browsers warn people before they arrive
Google said in October 2025 that from Chrome 154, due in October 2026, Chrome will ask a visitor's permission before opening any public site without a secure connection. If any page on your site still loads without the padlock, visitors will meet a warning first.
How to check: type your address with http:// at the front and see whether it switches to https:// by itself. Try an old page and a PDF as well.
4. It runs on software past its support date
Most WordPress sites run on a programming language called PHP. Each version gets security fixes for a few years and then stops. PHP 7.4 lost support in November 2022 and PHP 8.1 at the end of 2025. In September 2026, WordPress.org's own figures showed 37.6% of WordPress sites on a PHP version with no security support.
How to check: in WordPress, open Tools and then Site Health. The Info tab lists the PHP version under Server. Or ask your host.
5. Nobody knows what half the plugins do
Plugins are add-ons that give WordPress extra features. They're also where most of its security holes are: 91% of the WordPress vulnerabilities found in 2025, according to Patchstack's 2026 report. A long list of plugins with updates waiting is a sign nobody's looking after the site. We go into this in is your WordPress site a security risk.
How to check: open the Plugins screen. Count them, count the ones with updates waiting and ask what each one is for.
6. Only one person can change anything
If adding a project means emailing a freelancer who replies next week, the site will always trail your business. So will a page builder that breaks the layout whenever someone edits a heading. Your marketing coordinator should be able to add a project, a news item or a job opening in minutes.
How to check: ask whoever updates the site how long the last change took, from request to live.
7. It describes the firm you used to be
Buyers notice when the newest project is from 2021, when the team page lists people who left and when a certification has lapsed. It tells them nobody's minding the shop.
How to check: read your site as a buyer would. Note the date on the newest project, news item and case study.
8. Inquiries go missing
Contact forms fail quietly. A server setting changes or form emails start landing in spam, and nobody finds out until a customer mentions it weeks later.
How to check: send your own form from a phone today. Time how long the email takes to arrive and check that someone replies.
9. Some visitors can't use it
WebAIM tests the home pages of the top million websites every year. In its February 2026 report, 95.9% had failures against the WCAG accessibility guidelines. The most common was text too faint to read against its background, found on 83.9% of pages. People with poor eyesight struggle with it, and so does anyone reading a phone outdoors on a job site.
How to check: look for pale grey text on white, images with no description and form fields with no label.
10. AI tools can't make sense of it
In the same Gartner survey, 45% of B2B buyers said they used AI during a recent purchase. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can only name you if they can get into your pages and read them. We explain how to check in can ChatGPT find your business.
How many signs you find decides what to do next.
One or two signs can usually be fixed on the site you have. A slow home page or an old PHP version is a job measured in days. If your WordPress site is fast, ranks well and your team can update it, keep it. We said the same in choosing the right web architecture.
Once you're ticking five or more, the fixes start to cost more than they're worth. Each one touches the same old theme, the same pile of plugins and the same slow hosting. That's the point where a rebuild on a modern foundation makes more sense: pages built and tested to pass Google's speed test, far less to patch, simple editing for your team and a way to undo any change in one click.
A free check of your site is coming soon.
Our free Website Health Check is coming soon. It will run many of these checks for you: speed on a phone using Google's own test, whether Google can find and read your pages, the security basics and signs of neglect like broken links. Join the list and we'll email you when it opens.
If you recognize your site in this list, read how we rebuild legacy websites or book a call and we'll go through it with you.