Data Story

We rebuilt our website with AI, moved faster, and held our search visibility.

Website · SEO

July 2026

We rebuilt datastory.nz with AI writing every line of the code, to answer two questions at once. How fast can we publish a real site when AI does the building? And can an AI-built site come through a full platform migration, every URL rewritten, without losing the search visibility the old site had earned? So we did exactly that, and watched what happened.

The rebuilt datastory.nz homepage: the headline 'Let's grow your business with data-led marketing' above the Data Story neon sign — The rebuilt datastory.nz, written entirely by AI.

The goal

Publish faster, and keep every ranking through a full migration

A traditional website build moves at the speed of its development queue. Design waits on build, build waits on review, and weeks pass before anything ships. We wanted to compress that. Use AI to write the code, iterate in hours instead of days, and get a production site live in a fraction of the usual time.

Speed only counts if the output holds, and a migration is where that gets tested. Rewrite every URL at once and the rankings the old pages earned can vanish if the redirects are wrong. If AI-written code could carry the whole site across that, it could carry anything.

The approach

Build with AI, ship on a modern stack

We used AI to write the site on a modern component-based stack, moving from idea to working page in hours. The same speed that built the site let us be thorough where it mattered most: the migration.

A four-step loop: brief in, AI writes the code, ship it live by merging, then measure in GSC and GA4, repeating in hours — The site runs as a loop, not a launch. Brief in, AI writes the code, ship by merging, measure in GSC and GA4, and go again in hours.

Let AI write the build

Design and copy went straight into AI-assisted development on a modern framework, compressing the slow middle of a normal web project.

Map every old URL to its new home

Before launch we generated a redirect for every old address on the site, not a sample, so nothing was left to resolve itself.

Make each redirect permanent and check it lands

Every redirect is a permanent one, and we confirmed each target resolved to a real page rather than a dead end or a chain.

Watch the code prove itself

At launch we instrumented Google Search Console and GA4, so we could see whether the AI-built site held its rankings in real time instead of assuming it had.

The result

Shipped fast, and the code held

100%

of the site's code, written by AI

Drop in organic traffic after the AI-built site went live

2×

Pages viewed per visit vs the old site

Flat

Average Google position through a full URL rewrite

The AI-built site shipped fast, and the code did the hard part cleanly. Average search position stayed flat across the whole restructure. Organic traffic held, with no post-launch dip. Every old URL carries its visitors, and its rankings, through to a live new page.

Engagement went up rather than sideways. Pages viewed per visit roughly doubled on the new site, as the clearer structure gave people more reason to keep reading.

The real test of AI-written code is not whether it looks right. It is whether it survives contact with production. Ours moved a whole site to a new platform without dropping a ranking.

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