Website Redesign - Will it hurt SERP?
-
Hi - I am planning to redesign my blog and I was wondering if this will affect my rankings?
The new website template (custom designed) is much more user and seo friendly. The content, url structure, internal linking structure, meta tags, and site structure will remain exactly the same, but the visual design will be different (new sidebar widgets, and slightly different layout on inner pages).
The current website is ranking very well (mostly top 5), has a healthy backlink profile, strong social media presence, and great traffic.
I have heard that switching to a new template will dramatically hurt the rankings. Is this true? Are there any exceptions? Any ways I can prevent the rankings from dropping?
Would really appreciate your input. Thanks in advance.
Howard
-
Matthew, much appreciated.
Thankfully I don't need to worry about redirects since it's just a transition to a new template. About 90% of the other elements will remain intact.
Checking webmaster tools after the transition sounds really helpful.
ps. Thanks to everyone for your great responses!
-
Thanks for the detailed answer. This, in itself, could make a great article
After reviewing the items you mentioned, I actually realized some of the things I had neglected.
Apparently after transferring all the content to the demo website, some of the elements had changed, including: date of the posts, H tags, Authors, and few of the meta tags. So glad I caught your response in time to fix those issues.
For the most part, the new site is an improved version of the current site so if the rankings drop, I'll be surprised.
After I make the transition, I'll let you know the results. Hopefully this could make a good case scenario for the community.
Thanks again!
Howard
-
I think you have a good approach to this, and so, all things being the same, a refresh of the site should not hurt.
You mention that "content, url structure, internal linking structure" will all remain the same - if this is true and you keep everything in this bracket 'as-is' then you should be fine.
The most common reason rankings are lost when implementing a new site is re-directs, or the lack a redirect strategy to be more clear.
As your site structure / url structure is going to remain in-tack, then you wont really need to consider mass redirects.
However, here is what I would do just in case:
Before Launch:
Create a report of top linked to pages using Open Site Explore
Create a report of top content from the last few months from Google Analytics
Map all the URLs from the current site, use screaming from or something
After Launch:
Submit XML sitemap to webmaster tool
Review and improve on-page content
Monitor traffic in Google analytics, view top content for the period after launch and compare to the report you created prior to launch
Monitor and fix crawl errors in webmaster tools if any
Attract new links
Submit new XML sitemap (two weeks post launch)
Keep developing great content
-
keep it simple. The work and how much your rankings will change (usually just temporary) will be dependent on what you focus to work on and how big the site is
Just do things one at a time.
- Make sure you fix all errors ASAP (images, internal links etc)
- Redirect the old urls to the new urls
- Make sure the speed of loading is the same of faster.
- Basically, just do things quickly and optimise.
Run screaming frog after and fix all the remaining errors. Youll probably see more errors in webmaster tools once your site gets recrawled but those will probably be easy fixes.
Remember, just focus and get it done ASAP and youll be fine.
-
This is a tough question to answer. Technically yes, your SERPs will probably change. Hurt? That's hard to say.
I'm going to list a few reasons your SERs may change. I don't want to argue with everyone about which factors matter, etc. but these are some potential reasons your rankings may change (and other SEOs may disagree on which of these actually matter. I'm including them for the sake of completeness and to show that there are MANY reasons a site change will bounce your rankings.)
These are just some things that may change:
1) Site speed. You could be faster (better design, fewer big images) or you could be slower (that would hurt your rankings.)
2) Site structure. If you had a Wordpress site for instance that used to list all your post titles as H2 and your subheadings as H3 and now all your titles are H3, that is likely to at least somewhat affect your structure and yes, you may see some SERP changes.
3) Code / text ratio/density whatever you want to call it. Most SEOs will tell you very straightforwardly that "keyword density" is dead. And yet we've tested that this is a moderation thing. If you have a word too many times, you get penalized. Too few and it's just assumed to be one word among many, not a topic. The hint is to fall somewhere between say oh I dunno, 2 and 30 for most pages, right? Now, I've done a test that suggested if the word was on the page say 15 times and that was 2% of the whole page text, it wouldn't be penalized. Same word, same 15 times, and reduce the extraneous code so it's 10%? Gets penalized every time. So while on page keyword density is dead, MY (albeit flawed) study told me that changing code tremendously could affect your keywords if you tend to be on the higher (penalty) end.
**4) Validation. **Again, I'm being controversial and I understand many SEOs disagree with this one. However, you're asking what "may" hurt - and if your site was 100% valid before (or close) and it has a lot of errors now, that would (in my opinion) affect your SEO.
5) Page Age. Hurt or help - it's hard to say. Google normally prefers fresh content so you may actually see some improvements on this. However, when Google has "seasoned in" your pages and you change them, they aren't always 100% awesome at getting your rank exactly the same after any sort of change or even date update. (We had a news site for awhile that had ranking issues because older articles would get their "last edited" date updated frequently and Google would often drop older, successful URLs back 3-4 pages when we updated. It made no sense but ... ya, Google.)
6) Page layout. Google quality guideliens say that "the page layout on the highest quality pages makes the main content immediately visible." If your update makes more or less content show up "above the fold" as it were, you may see SERP changes for better or worse.
7) Breadcrumbs and Navigation. If your old theme had poor (or amazing) navigation and the new one is opposite, you could see SERP movement for sure. Google loves its breadcrumbs. If you had them and removed them, you could fall a bit. If you didn't have them and you do now, you could rise. Breadcrumbs signal good user experience and Google rewards that.
Mobile optimization. If the old site wasn't responsive/mobile friendly and the new one is, that could affect your mobile SERPs (and possibly your desktop ones ... depending on how its implemented.)
9) Analytics. I've posited before that Google must use some data from Analytics - time on site, pages per visit, bounce rate, etc. .They seem to correlate VERY strongly with my "most visited pages" and those with the highest rank. I would suggest that if your user experience dramatically improves, your SERPs may as well.
10) Schema. You said the structure is essentially remaining the same but if the new one allows for review stars, authorshop markup, photo schema or whatnot, that could improve SERP position.
-
Google will have to spider the site before any loss in rankings due to design, right? So, if there is a drop in rankings, it won't necessarily be recovered in a re-index.
But, so long as there are no errors and the site remains the same structurally and content wise, there shouldn't necessarily be any issue. Even if there are no errors with the new theme as far as SEO goes, if the new design affects the load speed, this could affect the ranking of your page.
-
That is only truth if the new theme that you are going to use has errors. If it has been SEO'ed and all the content will be the same, you may some rankings decline until Google spiders the new site and re index it. But that shouldn't take very long.
You need to think on the users first, will the users love the new site? If they will, then Google will follow, don't worry about that.
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
-
Website speed is above ?
I want to ask that my best tennis guru website speed is above 2.8 sec do it have any negative impact on my site?
Web Design | | looper50 -
NO Meta description pulling through in SERP with react website - Requesting Indexing & Submitting to Google with no luck
Hi there, A year ago I launched a website using react, which has caused Google to not read my meta descriptions. I've submitted the sitemap and there was no change in the SERP. Then, I tried "Fetch and Render" and request indexing for the homepage, which did work, however I have over 300 pages and I can't do that for every one. I have requested a fetch, render and index for "this url and linked pages," and while Google's cache has updated, the SERP listing has not. I looked in the Index Coverage report for the new GSC and it says the urls and valid and indexable, and yet there's still no meta description. I realize that Google doesn't have to index all pages, and that Google may not also take your meta description, but I want to make sure I do my due diligence in making the website crawlable. My main questions are: If Google didn't reindex ANYTHING when I submitted the sitemap, what might be wrong with my sitemap? Is submitting each url manually bad, and if so, why? Am I simply jumping the gun since it's only been a week since I requested indexing for the main url and all the linked urls? Any other suggestions?
Web Design | | DigitalMarketingSEO1 -
How to properly setup a website for the first time
Good morning, I am fairly proficient at SEO and understand a lot of the required elements - but am in no way an expert, which is why I am here now. We are in the process of setting up a brand new website (true PHP -Laravel) This will be for a nationwide website and will need to attract from the north, south, east and west. Although I have no worries about putting my domain out here, the site is not live and I don't want to possibly have a broken link pointing to me before I even launch - so I will give you an example URL and work from there. I will tell you it is a DOT Rentals website and we will call the business Widgets. So the URL is Widgets.Rentals There is no .com, .net - nothing. It is an exact match domain. The site operates as peer to peer - meaning customers will upload their widgets, photos, etc. of their widgets for rent. Now, having said that, let me ask this. If you were setting up this website - how would you recommend we do this right - right from the beginning? Since the customers (not the vendors) will search for widget rentals in a specific location - would you recommend that we maintain Geo Location with Google with a URL like this? Widget.Rentals/Orlando-Florida-beautiful-widgets-for-rent-at-a-great-price Or is it better to not Geo Locate? Widget.Rentals/beautiful-widgets-for-rent-at-a-great-price
Web Design | | Blitzburgh
I have a lot more in regards to setting up the site like Title bars, headers 1, 2, 3 - Alt text images, etc. But for now would appreciate the collective best advice from the group. Mike0 -
Are jobsite themes harder to optimize than say a traditional website?
Until recently I have enjoyed a great deal of success with SEO on my websites and clients websites. SEO is more of a hobby than a profession for me however I am really struggling with my latest website www.securityjobsuk.co.uk - The keywords are easy, 1. security jobs and 2. security vacancies. The site has vanished off radar completely since I used the jobify theme. Has anyone had similar experience with job boards? Do they require more TLC / expert attention?
Web Design | | SJUK0 -
Surviving a Redesign
Hi there, I'm in the process of building a new site using Shopify for our e-commerce site. We are currently using a WordPress site (www.batesmillstore.com) that was built by third party developers. I am concerned that we could see a drop in our organic traffic once we make the transition from the WordPress site to our Shopify site. Does anyone have any recommendations or a checklist we could use to make sure we're doing this properly and so that it is as smooth of a transition as possible? Thanks,
Web Design | | TheBatesMillStore
Bianca0 -
Website title next to a post title-how to remove it?
I just have checked on some of the keyword I am ranking for and found in the serp that next to the post I have also the site name. But I thought that I have remove it. Does somebody know how to remove it? perhaps I did not do it correctly. I am also using yoast seo plugin but I do not have it set there to show the site name after posts name. Can somebody help me to fix this please? I have also attached an image from the serp where is behind the post title also Villas Diani-the site name Thank you very much! Iris O1oj4W0.jpg
Web Design | | Rebeca10 -
Best Practices for home page design for ecommerce website
I know this question is not directly related to SEO, but I figured I have been getting some good help from this forum, so why not? The website is www.vrtack.com. I am looking to redesign the home page. It is an ecommerce website selling equestrian clothing and leather goods. My goals are: 1. Reduce the very high bounce rate and drop-off rate. 2. Fine tune the relevancy of the website towards a handful of keyword phrases. 3. Engage the visitor to create better click-through and to increase the average time spent on the page/site. 4. Page Loading time is of importance. It has to load quickly. I would love to hear some specific suggestions, examples, best practices.
Web Design | | amitramani0 -
How does the "first link" rule work with the "reasonable surfer patent" when it comes to the main navigation for a website?
In trying to figure out navigation for a new website, I am struggling with the first link rule vs. the reasonable surfer patent where the first link rule implies that Google "counts" the first link to a page including navigation, and the reasonable surfer patent that implies that navigation links carry less weight than body copy links. What is the best solution for creating main navigation so that it doesn't take away from the body copy links?
Web Design | | cindyt-170380