Site Re-Design - Running old XML site map for 301's

[ToxicFox]

Hi all,

We are going to launch a new site design for our current e-commerce site.

I have taken this opportunity to change some categories due to keyword research and all old categories will be 301ed to best fitting new category.

So I have 2 questions about moving stuff over;

1. I read that leaving the old xml site map running for the first week, would help, because this would give crawlers the chance to run through the site and follow the 301s, which would help pass the juice. How true does this sound?

2. I was thinking of re-writing all category and sub category titles, meta descriptions and on page content. The positive of this is loads of fresh content - but doing this all at the same time with the new site launch might see some major dropping in search ranking.

I've identified our top traffic keyword terms/pages, would it be more wise to leave these pages, and change the others, or would the total new fresh burst have a better impact?

Cheers

[Khem_Raj7]

1. Absolutely correct. - But make sure to upload new xml sitemap as well

2. Considering latest penguin update, if you re-do your site and make it live with well optimized (white hat only) pages and site structure. load speed, accessibility, content quality, etc. if all these points have been taken care of, there are no chances of rank drop, in fact it should improve.

P.S. don't concentrate to much on keywords, use them naturally/genuinely. Create attractive/meaningful meta tags.

Hope I was able to answer you query properly.

Best of luck

[Nobody1560986989723]

Heya,

Seems like on the whole you've at least thought through the redesign etc, so well done on that score. Here's my opinion on your questions though:

1. Leaving the XML file on-site for a short while won't do any harm - but make sure you have a new XML files containing the correct website structure going forward. Make sure your new structure has strong canonical tags so that the 301s are also recognised by their new URLs. As far as I know, the XML file doesn't help 'pass the juice', the 301's will.

The other consideration is to ensure you systematically look at external links to old pages and get them changed to point to new pages as the juice value of 301's diminishes over time.

2. You should only see a drop in your rankings if your new page content and titles become less relevant. So ensure your on-page optimisation is done well for your target keywords as soon after that page 'going live' as possible. If you drop in rankings, it may be temporary, or as you say with fresh content it may give it a boost. The issue is not your rankings, but ensuring relevance for your page. If you drop, compare your on-page optimisation to those of your competitors and see what they are doing differently.

If you do everything systematically/methodically and do it well then you should be fine.