Build New Site Without Losing Rankings
-
Good morning SEOmoz community. I have a question which I am pretty sure I already know the answer to, however i thought I would reach out to my fellow experts to see if anyone had some great advice.
I would really like to give my website a makeover. i have two thoughts on this, one is to scrap the site completely and start fresh, the other would be to only change it visually, but keep all the content and on-page optimization. I am terrified of losing my rankings. I am ranked position 1 and 2 for highly competitive terms and have another 15 - 20 keywords on page 1. Any advice would be tremendously appreciated!!!
-
Thank you!
-
Thanks!!
-
Webby,
Here is some additional reading. Website makeover without losing rankings
-
Hey there
Option 2 would be the best way to maintain your rankings. If you can ensure that the content, on-page elements and links pointing towards the page stay the same, as in the URLs remain the same, then there should be no reason why changing the design would result in a rankings drop. A design change would only trigger a drop if it came along with loads of ads above the fold, or if it included hidden links on the page through the use of CSS, in order pass PageRank elsewhere.
If you wanted to keep the elements the same but did want to change the URLs, I would ensure that you take any old URLs that have been changed and add a 301 redirect to the new URL. This will ensure all of the inbound links are passed on.
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
-
Do more links from sub-domains to domain (website) hurt rankings?
Hi all, If there are multiple sub-domains like abc.website.com, 123.website.com, etc...and if the top pages of website are linked from multiple sub-domains via top menu or footer links; will this hurts? Will too much interlinking of few top pages of a website from it's sub-domains dilute link juice? How many links ideally we can add to website from a sub-domain? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Website Redesign and Migration to Squarespace killed my Ranking
My old website was dated, ugly, impossible to update and a mess between hard-coded pages and WP, but we were ranking #1 in the organic searches for our key words. I just redesigned my website using Squarespace. I kept most of the same text on the pages (for key words) and kept the same Meta-Tags and Title Tags for each page as much as possible. Once I was satisfied that I had done as much on-page optimization as I could, I changed the IP in our Domain Name Registry so that it would point to our new website on the Squarespace host. And our new website was live! ...Then I watched in dismay as our ranking fell into oblivion. I think this might have something to do with not doing any 301 redirects from the old website and losing all of my link juice. Is this the case? And, if so, how do I fix it? Our website url is www.kanataskinclinic.ca Thanks
Web Design | | StillLearning1 -
Are non-breaking spaces ( ) in keyword phrases bad for ranking
Hello all, I came across a tip for avoiding text orphans in responsive design by putting a non-breaking space between the last two words. While this works nicely, I was wondering if I did this inside of a keyword phrase, would it still rank equally as well? Or will it be viewed as separate phrases or terms? Thanks, Roman
Web Design | | Dynata_panel_marketing0 -
Content thin for new home page been told to change it? any suggestions?
Hi guys, I'm newbie.... I have been told that my home page is content thin, and if I want to rank really well in the search i need to have more relevant content on my homepage - the site is only new 2months and I can see we are now at 39th place in the search, if i make changes to the home page design and add more content will this effect this current ranking?
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
International SEO issues for multiple sites
We currently have 3 websites: oursite.co.uk oursite.fr oursite.ch We also own Oursite.com, and that URL currently redirects to Oursite.fr. We are considering a complete site redesign and a possible merge of the 3 sites. Assumptions: ** the 3 sites currently receive organic search traffic to varying degrees
Web Design | | darkgreenguy
** Oursite.ch is almost identical to Oursite.fr in terms of the site content
** Our target market is NOT the USA for English-language searches. It is the UK. With a re-design, we see our options as follows: Merge the 3 sites and make Oursite.com the "main site" and then have subfolders as follows: /uk /fr /ch Keep the 3 sites as they are. We see Option 1 as the best in terms of saving time when updating the site, and saving money paid to the site developers (1 site vs 3 sites). We see Option 2 as the best in terms of ability of the site to rank, as well as confidence of searchers when seeing our site in the search results (in other words, a person searching in France would be more likely to buy and/or submit a form on our site if they saw Oursite.fr vs Oursite.com/fr). I guess we're looking for some suggestions/guidance here. Are we missing any big issues? Does anyone have experience with an issue such as this? Thank you in advance...
-Shawn0 -
Duplicate Content Problem on Our Site?
Hi, Having read the SEOMOZ guide and already worried about this previously, I have decided to look further into this. Our site is 4-5 years old, poorly built by a rouge firm so we have to stick with what we have for now. Were I think we might be getting punished is duplicate content across various pages. We have a Brands page, link at top of page. Here we are meant to enter each brand we stock and a little write up on that brands. What we then put in these write ups is used on each brands item page when we click a brand name on the left nav bar. Or when we click a Product Type (eg. Footwear) then click on a brand filter on the left. So this in theory is duplicate content. The SEO title and Meta Description for each brand is then used on the Brands Page and also on each page with the Brands Product on. As we have entered this brand info, you will notice that the page www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/armani-jeans/ has the same brand description in the scroll box at the top as the page www.designerboutique-online.com/shirts/armani-jeans/ and all the other product type pages. The same SEO title and same Meta descriptions. Only the products change from each one. This then applies to each brand we have (at least 15) across about 8 pages. All with different URLs but the same text. Not sure how a 301 or rel: canonical would work for this, as each URL needs to point at specific pages (eg. shirts, shorts etc...). Some brands such as Creative Recreation and Cruyff only sell footwear, so technically I think??? We could 301 to the Footwear/ URL rather than having both all-clothing and footwear file paths? This surely must be down to the bad design? Could we be losing valulable rank and juice because of this issue? And how would I go about fixing it? I want a new site, but funds are tight. But if this issue is so big that only a new site would fix it, then maybe the money would need to come forward. What do people make of this? Cheers Will
Web Design | | YNWA0 -
Best way to set up a site with multiple brick and mortor locations across Canada
I have a client who is expanding his business locations from 2 cities to 3, and working towards having 10+ locations across Canada. Right now we're building location based landing pages for each city, as well as keyword targeted landing pages for each city. For example, landing pages for "Vancouver whatever clinic" and "Calgary whatever clinic" as well as for "Vancouver specific service", and "Calgary specific service". This means a lot of landing pages will need to be created to target each of 10 or so desirable "service" keywords for each city's location. I've no issue with this, however I was wondering how other companies go about this? What's the best way to be relevant for certain "service" based keyword searches in each city? Many of the "service" keywords are 'localized' meaning they will show Google Places results for local brick and mortar businesses for each location. I'm quite good at optimizing locally for this type of thing. However, many of the "service" keywords are not yet 'localized' by Google, I'd want to have my client webpages show well in the SERP's. for these 'non-localized' "service keywords" as well. the new site will be built in WordPress
Web Design | | AndyKuiper0 -
Question about web site structure
Is there an SEO advantage for individual pages to be in sub folders vs not being in a folder? Of course site managemnt is easier with folders if you have 100;s of pages...clearly a shorter URL is easier for humans to naviagte. store.com/gadgets store.com/lasers vs. store.com/gadgets/lasers
Web Design | | johnshearer0