Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
When I changes Template, why traffic goes down?
-
I've noticed that when I change my blog's template the traffic goes down dramatically, about of 40% decrease. I know that new themes can have some problems but I have tried this with 2 different themes. First try was with genesis framework(Paid one) and just in one day traffic went down and when I reverted the old theme, the traffic became normal.
Should I wait for 1 week to see what happens?
What could be the potential reason of this?
-
I'd try to get really specific on two things;
-
"traffic" - are you saying only Google traffic? All traffic?
-
if it IS google traffic, did you notice if Google has actually crawled and re-cached the new version on the website?
-
also, does traffic decrease evenly across all pages on the site? or is it limited to just certain pages or sections?
-
"changing themes" - are these theme changes only design / skin changes - or do they affect URLs, internal links, content (such as page titles/descriptions etc)
I think answering these questions really matters in terms of figuring out what happened. I think it's very unlikely for just a surface skin/design change to hurt traffic so much - there must be deeper things going on, and it's just a matter of figuring out what the specifics are.
-
-
If you are really carefull on links, content and theme quality the drop with be temporary. But complete structure change with different headings, changed internal link structure can really do harm on your site for a bit longer.
As long as gross kept the same only the theme changes, and you don't build of a lot of 404's you'll be fine within 1 or 2 weeks.
-
But What should be the plan for changing the theme? I'm not a dev, nor a designer and only use premium Wordpress themes for my blog.
-
Hammad if is normal for the traffic to drop when you made any significant change on the bog and changing the entire theme can be one of them. I have worked with different clients and in my understanding the drop can be controlled to minimum if you have a shift plan, time and you should have a clear idea that the theme you are uploading didn’t have any problem.
I believe you should be ready for it if you are changing the theme all you need is a perfect planning to make that traffic drop to minimum.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking dropped after change single page url, should I change it back?
I was making updates to the content on the following page, and a few days later dropped from #2 SERP ranking to 50+. Things I checked: Yes, 301 redirect was implemented right away. After publishing, I manually requested indexing in search console. Right after publishing I re-submitted the sitemap manually and Google said they had not crawled it in 9 days. My question: should I change the URL back to the old one, or give it a little more time (especially since I re-submitted sitemap) Original URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/ New URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical-insurance/
On-Page Optimization | | DamianTysdal0 -
Changes taken over in the SERP's: How long do I have to wait until i can rely on the (new) position?
I changed different things on a particular page (mainly reduced the exaggerated keyword density --> spammy). I made it recrawl by Google (Search Console). The new version has now already been integrated in the SERP's.Question: Are my latest changes (actual crawled page in the SERP's is now 2 days old) already reflected in the actual position in the SERP's or should I wait for some time (how long?) to evaluate the effect of my changes? Can I rely on the actual position or not?
On-Page Optimization | | Cesare.Marchetti0 -
How to change images of a page without loosing ranking?
Hi, I have two reasons to change some images of a page on a wordpress site: 1.Google speed service advise me to optmize the images size to better spead load times. 2.I want to change images titles (to improve seo optimization for the page keyword), so i need to replace them, since im using wordpress. Now the question is: Can i just change the images without worring about any related seo issues? Or should i follow some best practice to change images in order to not affect the ranking of the page? tx for your support!
On-Page Optimization | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
After HTTPS upgrade, should I change all internal links, or a general 301 redirect is better?
I recently upgraded to https. Of course most internal links of my old posts are still http. So I set up a 301 redirect in order to make the old link works. In terms od SEO this is good or it is better to update all the internal links to https, manually? In that case can I do it in batch with a search/replace command in the phmyadmin database? any other suggested method? thank you
On-Page Optimization | | micvitale0 -
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
On-Page Optimization | | Grafimart0 -
How To Change Wordpress Category Title
My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
How long does it take for Google to see Changes to a site?
Hi, I have a low PR site (PR 1) that I am starting to work on. Ingeneral when you make changes to my site how long would it take Google to recognize and index those changes? The reason I am wondering is because the site I am working on had a lot of duplicate content (around 700 pages), I got rid of it all, but I wasn't sure how long it would take Google to spider all these pages and re-index them since the site is low PR. Thanks, Ken
On-Page Optimization | | Jason_3420 -
Changing page titles and google penalties?
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0
