Replacing website, same URL, lose ranking

[lauratagdigital]

We had to do a rush job for a client and get a website up very quickly.

We had to just replace the existing files on the server, but URL stayed the same.

Now "teeth whitening glasgow" which they were number #1 for isn't coming up.  Know there is still some on page work to be done - but the link profile should still remain the same?

Just looking for some advice to get back to where they were - should we do a website change of address or just verify the site in Webmaster and get all the on page done?

Thanks,

Laura

[lauratagdigital]

Thanks Paul - actually that has worked a treat.  Everything is back to where is should be.

I'm getting a error with creating my xml site map which is frustrating as not sure how to fix that as then wanted to submit a new one.

But happy keywords all seem to be as normal!

Laura

[ThompsonPaul]

As Matt Cutts of Google has recently said, Laura, the 301 redirects should send along pretty much all of the ranking influence of their original pages. It can take the search engines a while to index all of these new 301s and get the juice flowing again though.

Let us know how it goes!

Paul

[lauratagdigital]

Thanks for your answers everyone.

Paul - The domain and URLs of several of the pages are the same.  I've redirected all of the old links that weren't the same to point to the new ones via 301s.

I'll leave it a couple of days then do an XML site map.

Should the redirects carry the same SEO benefit?

It's a Wordpress site so going to go through all the pages with Yoast and get them up to date.

I'll also check out Webmaster results.

Thanks,

Laura

[ThompsonPaul]

Just to be clear, Laura - you say "...URL stayed the same".

By this, do you mean that the domain name stayed the same? Or that the actual URL of every single page on the site stayed the same? Meaning that the file names if the new pages are identical to the original ones, including their extensions? This is a critical piece of information.

If the URLs of the actual individual pages have changed, you need to have written 301-redirects for every old page to the new URLs in order to keep the value of your old incoming links. If the actual page URLs have changed and no redirects were done, you will be seeing a massive increase in 404 errors in your Webmaster Tools as well as in your Analytics.

If your individual page URLs have changed, you'll also need to make certain you've created and submitted a new xml sitemap. (But only after you've had the 301-redirects in place for a few days.)

Assuming at least your domain name has stayed the same, as you indicated, there's no way to do a Webmaster Tools change of address as the address hasn't actually changed.

Can you let us know if the actual page URLs all stayed the same?

Paul

[irvingw]

There are so many things that could have caused this it's impossible to speculate without knowing the URL and looking at the old site which can probably be pulled up in archive.org. But yes, GWMT analysis is a good place to start.

[djlaidler]

Hi Laura,

I would suggest setting up Google webmasters and checking the crawl errors. Google will already be monitoring this so once you have set it up, the errors will already be listed. My feelings are that the urls may have changed in a subtle way eg. Www now non-www or html files now php... Webmasters will give clues.  Also while your there I recommend submitting a sitemap.

Best of luck,

Dan

[Solvari]

Hi Laura,

The link profile should be unchanged, unless you have changed the url structure. So it's important to check if all the url's of the web pages other than the homepage are also unchanged or that you have at least used redirects.

Also have a good look at the on-page optimisation for the page that ranked well for 'teeth whitening glasgow'.

Besides this there are loads of other elements that might have changed in the new site and had an effect on your rankings. (changed internal linking, content etc.)

Good luck!