Homepage
Live site
Concept
Performance across three runs: live 61, 75, 64; concept 100, 100, 100.
Scorecard
The live site against the concept
We measured peterbarry.co.uk and this concept on the same day, with the same tools, as a mid-range phone on a slow 4G connection sees them.
Measured 18 October 2026 · Google Lighthouse 12.8.2, mobile, median of three runs · axe-core 4.14.0, WCAG 2.2 AA
Redesigning without losing rankings: how we'd protect yours3.6×
faster
Main content on screen in 1.6 s, down from 5.8 s
6.1×
lighter
287 KB to load the homepage, down from 1.7 MB
33 to 0
accessibility failures
Automated WCAG 2.2 AA failures on the homepage, on a phone
64 to 100
performance score
Google Lighthouse, mobile, out of 100
Google Lighthouse
Scores out of 100, on a phone
Lighthouse is Google's own audit. 90 and above is good; 50 to 89 needs work.
Party wall page
Live site
Concept
Performance across three runs: live 62, 61, 59; concept 100, 100, 100.
Search engine optimisation is left out on purpose: the concept is hidden from search engines while it's a pitch, which costs it points that a live site wouldn't lose.
Speed
What a visitor on a phone feels
Lower is better on every measure.
Homepage
Main content on screen
3.6× fasterLargest Contentful Paint. Google treats under 2.5 s as good.
- Live site
- 5.8 s
- Concept
- 1.6 s
Time the page is frozen
No blockingTotal Blocking Time: taps and scrolls wait while scripts run.
- Live site
- 245 ms
- Concept
- 0 ms
Content jumping as it loads
No jumpingCumulative Layout Shift. Under 0.1 is good.
- Live site
- 0.048
- Concept
- 0
Page weight
6.1× lighterEverything downloaded to show the page.
- Live site
- 1.7 MB
- Concept
- 287 KB
Files requested
4.1× fewerEach one is a round trip on a mobile connection.
- Live site
- 95
- Concept
- 23
JavaScript downloaded
103× lessCompressed size. Scripts are the costliest bytes on a phone.
- Live site
- 710 KB
- Concept
- 7 KB
Party wall page
Main content on screen
5.1× fasterLargest Contentful Paint. Google treats under 2.5 s as good.
- Live site
- 7.1 s
- Concept
- 1.4 s
Time the page is frozen
No blockingTotal Blocking Time: taps and scrolls wait while scripts run.
- Live site
- 246 ms
- Concept
- 0 ms
Content jumping as it loads
No jumpingCumulative Layout Shift. Under 0.1 is good.
- Live site
- 0.119
- Concept
- 0
Page weight
8× lighterEverything downloaded to show the page.
- Live site
- 1.1 MB
- Concept
- 146 KB
Files requested
5.9× fewerEach one is a round trip on a mobile connection.
- Live site
- 82
- Concept
- 14
JavaScript downloaded
92× lessCompressed size. Scripts are the costliest bytes on a phone.
- Live site
- 682 KB
- Concept
- 7 KB
See every figure as a table
| Measure | Home, live | Home, concept | Party wall, live | Party wall, concept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance score | 64 | 100 | 61 | 100 |
| Accessibility score | 82 | 100 | 78 | 100 |
| Best practices score | 57 | 100 | 82 | 100 |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 5.8 s | 1.6 s | 7.1 s | 1.4 s |
| First Contentful Paint | 3.0 s | 1.2 s | 3.0 s | 1.2 s |
| Speed Index | 5.5 s | 1.2 s | 3.7 s | 1.2 s |
| Total Blocking Time | 245 ms | 0 ms | 246 ms | 0 ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.048 | 0 | 0.119 | 0 |
| Page weight | 1.7 MB | 287 KB | 1.1 MB | 146 KB |
| Requests | 95 | 23 | 82 | 14 |
| JavaScript (compressed) | 710 KB | 7 KB | 682 KB | 7 KB |
| Third-party domains | 16 | 0 | 13 | 0 |
| Accessibility failures (phone / desktop) | 33 / 38 | 0 / 0 | 12 / 20 | 0 / 0 |
Accessibility
Easier for everyone to use
Automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on both pages, at phone and desktop sizes.
Live site
58
failures across the two pages on desktop
Concept
0
failures, at phone and desktop sizes
Homepage on the live site33 on a phone, 38 on desktop
- 15Text with too little contrast to read comfortablyWCAG 1.4.3 Contrast
- 8Hidden elements keyboard users can still tab intoWCAG 4.1.2 Name, role, value
- 6List items outside a listWCAG 1.3.1 Info and relationships
- 5Tap targets too small or too close togetherWCAG 2.5.8 Target size
- 3Links a screen reader announces with no nameWCAG 2.4.4 Link purpose
- 1Controls whose spoken name differs from the visible labelWCAG 2.5.3 Label in name
- 1Pinch-to-zoom is switched offWCAG 1.4.4 Resize text
- 1Lists built in a way screen readers misreadWCAG 1.3.1 Info and relationships
Party wall page on the live site12 on a phone, 20 on desktop
- 7Text with too little contrast to read comfortablyWCAG 1.4.3 Contrast
- 6List items outside a listWCAG 1.3.1 Info and relationships
- 5Tap targets too small or too close togetherWCAG 2.5.8 Target size
- 1Controls whose spoken name differs from the visible labelWCAG 2.5.3 Label in name
- 1Links a screen reader announces with no nameWCAG 2.4.4 Link purpose
- 1Pinch-to-zoom is switched offWCAG 1.4.4 Resize text
- 1Lists built in a way screen readers misreadWCAG 1.3.1 Info and relationships
Under the bonnet
How the pages are built
The homepage, side by side. The party wall page tells the same story.
- Pinch-to-zoom
- Switched off on every page
- Always available
- Homepage headline (H1)
- “Welcome to PETER BARRY CHARTERED BUILDING SURVEYORS.”
- “Chartered Surveyors Across London, Since 1983”
- Images with a fixed size (stops the page jumping)
- 7 of 110 on the homepage
- All 53
- Modern image formats (AVIF and WebP)
- 7 homepage images could be smaller in a modern format
- Every image, with sizes for each screen
- Requests that block the first paint
- 6 on each page
- None
- Script libraries
- jQuery and 710 KB of JavaScript
- No framework, 7 KB in total
- Third-party services loaded
- 16 other domains
- None: no tracking, no cookies
- Fonts
- 5 fonts hide text while they load
- Self-hosted, text shows straight away
- Company name in Google’s structured data
- “Peter Barry Surveyuours”
- “Peter Barry Surveyors Limited”, plus office, breadcrumb and service markup
Facts and fixes
One set of facts, everywhere
The live site gives different numbers on different pages. The concept uses one consistent set, chosen from the most specific or most recent source on the site itself.
| Fact | On the concept | Elsewhere on the live site |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1983 | "over 20 years", "35+ years", "50+ year history", "over 40 years" |
| Offices | 12 (6 London, 6 South East) | "6 offices", "five offices and a head office", "our 4 London offices" |
| Team | 25 surveyors and specialists | "12 strong", "over 20 team members" |
| Google reviews | 4.8 from over 800 | Review widget shows 955; top bar says "over 800 Google Reviews" |
| Trustpilot | 4.8 from 762 | Consistent |
| N20 office name | Whetstone | "Winchmore Hill" on the party wall page |
| Sevenoaks address | 1 Cobden Road, TN13 3UB | 11 Lime Tree Walk, TN13 1YH elsewhere |
| Main phone | 020 7183 2578 | Consistent |
Content corrected on the concept
- 1
Section 6, not section 3. The party wall page titles adjacent excavation "Section 3". Adjacent excavation is section 6 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996; section 3 deals with party structure notices. The page's own procedure text already says "sections 1, 2 and 6", so the heading contradicts the page.
- 2
"50+ year history" on the party wall Why Choose block conflicts with the 1983 founding date. Replaced with "part of a firm established in 1983".
- 3
"12 strong team" on the party wall page conflicts with 25 staff profiles. Number removed.
- 4
Homepage H1 "Welcome to PETER BARRY CHARTERED BUILDING SURVEYORS." replaced with a service and location headline.
- 5
All-caps headings (PARTY WALL MATTERS, RICS LEVEL 2 HOME SURVEY and so on) set in title or sentence case.
- 6
Typos fixed: "LEASE EXTENTIONS", "peoples' homes", "in to a basement", "relation existing".
- 7
Two audiences, one page. The party wall page speaks to building owners and adjoining owners at the same time. The concept splits them with a route switch.
- 8
Internal link through a redirect. The homepage Level 2 slide links to /property-surveys/rics-homebuyers-report/, which 301s to /property-surveys/rics-level-2-home-survey/. The concept links to the final URL.
- 9
Broken area link. The party wall page links to /party-wall-surveyors/east-london/, which returns 404 (checked 18 Oct 2026). The concept sends "Party wall surveyors in East London" to the East London office page instead, matching how North London is handled.
- 10
North London link through a redirect. /contact/northlondon/ 301s to /our-offices/northlondon/. The concept links to the final URL.
Technical fixes shown on the concept
- Viewport allows pinch zoom (the live site blocks it, WCAG 1.4.4).
- One H1 per page, logical heading order.
- Every form field has a label; icon-only links have accessible names.
- Images have width and height set, modern formats and lazy loading below the fold. The hero image is preloaded with high fetch priority.
- No render-blocking third-party scripts. No jQuery.
- Organization name spelt correctly in structured data (live: "Peter Barry Surveyuours").
Protecting your rankings
A new design without losing your place in Google
Google ranks pages on three things: their addresses, their content and the links pointing to them. The design is how that content is presented. At launch we keep all three the same and prove it with a before-and-after audit. The copy changes afterwards, in measured stages. So the new design changes how the site looks and converts, not what Google sees on day one.
- Kept
Page addresses
Every URL stays the same, or is redirected one to one.
- Kept
Content that ranks
The substance, keywords and headings of every ranking page.
- Kept
Links from other sites
They keep pointing at the same pages.
- New
Design and layout
Faster, clearer and easier to act on.
The plan, step by step
Before launch
- 1
Benchmark everything
- Crawl all 508 addresses in your sitemaps (219 blog posts, 262 pages and 25 staff profiles) and record each page's title, description, headings and internal links.
- Export 16 months of Google Search Console data by page and by search term, plus organic landing pages from Google Analytics.
- Mark the pages that bring visitors or have links from other sites as protected, and start tracking your priority searches, such as “party wall surveyor London”, a few weeks before launch.
- 2
Keep every address the same
- The concept already uses your live addresses, such as /party-wall-surveyors/, and mirrors your menu link for link.
- Anything that has to move gets a one-to-one permanent redirect to its closest match: no chains, and nothing sent to the homepage.
- Blog posts, staff profiles, office pages, images and PDFs keep their addresses. Launch also fixes what we found: links that pass through redirects, and the East London party wall page, which returns an error today.
- 3
Keep the content that ranks
- Each ranking page keeps its substance, keywords and headings at launch. On the concept's party wall page, the full section 1, 2 and 6 explanations and all eight FAQs are kept, tidied into sections that expand. Google indexes content in expandable sections.
- Titles and descriptions stay as they are unless the data says otherwise. Your homepage title is “Chartered Building Surveyors in London | Peter Barry”; before changing it we would check how many searches include “building surveyor”.
- 4
Prove it before launch
- The new site is built on a private address hidden from Google, exactly as this concept is.
- We crawl it and compare it with the live site: every address works, titles and headings match the plan, nothing important is missing and internal links are intact.
Launch day
- 5
Switch on carefully
- Remove the setting that hides the site from Google. Forgetting it is the most common way a redesign loses rankings, and this concept has it switched on deliberately.
- Submit the new sitemap to Google and Bing, test every redirect, and confirm robots.txt and analytics.
- Ask Google to recrawl the most important pages straight away.
After launch
- 6
Watch closely for 90 days
- Daily for the first fortnight, then weekly: errors in Search Console, clicks and impressions on the protected pages, and rankings for priority searches.
- A few weeks of small movement is normal while Google recrawls. With the same addresses and content it usually settles quickly, and anything that drops gets fixed.
- 7
Improve the copy in stages
- New copy goes live page by page, and each change is measured. If a page dips, we know why and can roll it back.
- This keeps “new design” and “new words” separate, so each can be judged on its own.
Where the growth comes from
Speed
Main content on screen in 1.6 s instead of 5.8 s on the homepage. Page experience is a modest ranking factor, and slow pages lose visitors before they arrive.
Clearer structure
One descriptive headline per page, headings in a logical order, and correct structured data (today it misspells the company name).
One set of facts
The same office details, history and team size everywhere. Google and AI assistants rely on consistent details, and they help your 12 offices appear in local map results.
Visible expertise
Named, qualified surveyors on the pages they handle, in line with Google's guidance on experience and expertise.
Room to grow
A cleaner system makes it quick to add the content that brings new visitors, such as party wall pages for each area you cover and answers to the questions buyers and neighbours search for.
What we commit to
No one can honestly promise that Google won't move. We promise the process.
- A full benchmark before anything changes
- The same addresses and content at launch, proved by a before-and-after audit
- 90 days of close monitoring after launch
- Fixing anything that drops
The goal is more enquiries over time, not a single ranking position.
Method
How we measured
- Both sites tested on 18 October 2026, one after the other, from the same machine.
- Google Lighthouse 12.8.2 in mobile mode: a mid-range phone on a throttled 4G connection. Each page was run three times and the middle result is shown. Lab scores move a little between runs, so the individual runs are listed under each set of scores.
- Accessibility checked with axe-core 4.14.0 against WCAG 2.2 AA at 390px and 1440px wide. Automated tools can't catch everything, so the concept has also been checked by keyboard.
- Pages compared like for like: peterbarry.co.uk against the concept homepage, and the two party wall pages.