How I qualify web-design prospects with an outdated-website checker (no scraping, robots.txt-respecting)

Description and use

An automated checker rates small‑business websites for redesign need, assigns a 0‑100 score, and produces a concise outreach hook.

Problem

Determining which small‑business websites need redesign and crafting a relevant first line for outreach is slow and tedious when done manually.

Outcome

The checker identifies outdated sites quickly, assigns a transparent score, and produces a concise outreach hook, enabling the designer to prioritize prospects and personalize emails efficiently.

Workflow

• Import prospect list
• For each domain: check robots.txt with user‑agent RedesignSignalsBot
• Fetch homepage via HTTPS, fallback to HTTP if needed
• Detect signals: viewport tag, copyright year, jQuery/Bootstrap/CMS versions, HTTPS issues, broken internal links, image sizes, enquiry form, tap‑to‑call link
• Calculate additive score with predefined points per finding
• Generate outreach hook from top two reasons
• Output JSON with domain, score, reasons, hook

Evidence

I wrote a small checker that does the boring part: fetch each homepage, look for a handful of observable signals, give it a 0-100 "outdated" score, and write one neutral, factual sentence I can verify in 20 seconds before using it.

Source

No mobile viewport tag +25 HTTPS certificate error +22 plain http only +20 © year 5+ years old +15 (3-4 years: +10, 2 years: +4) ...

Source

The site has no mobile viewport tag and it still loads jQuery 1.8.3.

Source