Written by IILL Editorial. Confirm current medical-advertising and privacy requirements with the responsible organisation.
A hospital website redesign is a migration of search URLs, approved medical information, booking paths, and personal-data handling, not only a visual replacement. Deleting the old site and publishing a new menu can break search landings while preserving outdated clinical information or unnecessary enquiry fields.
Build the migration ledger before the mock-up. For every old URL, record the new URL, content owner, advertising or legal review state, form dependency, and live verification step.
This article is not legal advice. The institution and its advisers must decide which Korean medical-advertising review and privacy requirements apply to the actual content, medium, and operation.
Four responsibilities that make a hospital migration different
Clinical information has a freshness owner
Hours, clinicians, services, equipment, location, and contact details change a patient’s next action. Record the source system, approving role, last-checked date, and next review date instead of treating the copy as permanently approved.
Claims need a publication gate
Treatment outcomes, before-and-after material, testimonials, comparisons, prices, and promotions are not decorative content. The institution must review each item against the Korean Medical Service Act and the applicable advertising-review process. Previous publication is not by itself approval for republication.
A booking form can become a health-data intake
For a general contact form, begin with the minimum operational fields: contact method and preferred time, for example. Ask the privacy owner whether a diagnosis, test result, detailed symptom, identity number, or attachment is actually necessary. A checkbox does not make unnecessary collection prudent.
Search migration is page by page
Service and clinician pages may have search demand and external links. Redirect each old URL to the closest equivalent with a server-side permanent redirect. When no equivalent exists, an honest 404 or 410 with useful navigation is better than sending every URL to the home page.
Four inventories to build before redesign
1. URLs and search evidence
Crawl the existing site and record URL, status, title, canonical, and index state. Mark Search Console impressions and clicks, analytics landings, external links, and pages that contribute to a booking or enquiry.
2. Content and approval
| Content | Source owner | Facts to verify | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinician profile | HR and department | Name, credentials, role, schedule | Fact review |
| Service page | Clinical owner | Audience, process, limits, next step | Clinical review |
| Price or promotion | Operations and legal | Conditions, dates, inclusion | Advertising review |
| Story or testimonial | Legal and privacy | Permission, identification, wording | Separate approval |
| Hours and location | Administration | Address, parking, closures, phone | Operations check |
Record the approving role, date, evidence, and next review date rather than a bare “approved” status.
3. Forms and data flow
Map where each field goes, who can see it, and when it is deleted. Test the real browser → server → mail → CRM path. Check that values do not leak into URLs, analytics parameters, or raw error messages.
4. Accounts and external services
Record owners and recovery methods for the domain, DNS, business mail, maps, booking, messages, analytics, Search Console, and advertising. Preserve DNS records before a change so the website migration does not break mail or booking verification.
Pre-launch checklist
- Every old URL has a new destination or explicit retirement decision.
- Owners verified clinical information and clinician profiles.
- The responsible reviewer decided whether advertising review applies.
- Expired prices and promotions are removed from pages, search, and cache.
- Booking and contact forms request only reviewed necessary fields.
- Privacy notice, consent, retention, and deletion match the real flow.
- Phone, directions, booking, cancellation, and errors work on mobile.
- Changed URLs use direct server-side permanent redirects.
- Canonical, sitemap, robots, and structured data match visible content.
- Lead success and failure are measured separately and delivery is verified.
Day one, week one, and week four
On day one, test representative service and clinician pages, booking, phone, maps, business mail, and redirects. During week one, inspect 404s, accidental noindex, form failures, and mobile errors. At week four, compare search landings, confirmed bookings, and contact paths with the pre-launch baseline.
Google’s site-move documentation connects URL mapping, permanent redirects, sitemap updates, and monitoring. Ranking movement is not a reason to create thin service pages; fix migration errors and missing useful information first.
Use the general website redesign SEO checklist for shared migration work. For implementation help, contact IILL about the hospital-specific information architecture and review responsibilities.
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