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
-
Ability to Transition Completed Wordpress Website to New Coder/Developer
We have worked with the same Wordpress developer since 2012. They recently redesigned our Wordpress site. We purchased a real estate theme and they performed major modifications to it. The project took 8 months. There are many customized widgets and multiple plugins. We hired a new SEO. The SEO is very comfortable coding. The SEO performed certain modifications and the code broke. The original developer stepped in and and helped restore the code. The SEO stated that the site should not be so delicate; that too many plugins and widgets are used making it inherently unstable. The original developer is claiming that the SEO did not follow best practices (they did not use a dev server to test). For a non technical business owner this is very disturbing. We finally agreed that the new SEO would make changes on a dev server and the original developer will check these changes to ensure they do not break the code. My question is, shouldn't a Wordpress site be simple enough to hand over to a decent coder with little risk of breaking the code? Are there any standards regarding the hand over of a site? I am comfortable with my developers, but what if they change professions or close their company? How would I transition the site? There must be standards and protocols that allow a third party, such as an SEO to change code without causing havoc. Any one have some insight?
Web Design | | Kingalan11 -
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 -
HTML and XML sitemaps for one website.
Hi all, First, we have created a HTML sitemap for our wordpress website. Then we again generated XML sitemap and submitted same in search console. It's been more than a week and still new XML sitemap has not been indexed yet. I can still only see HTML sitemap for search results "company sitemap". Also search console do have only XML sitemap. Both sitemaps are accessible but only HTML has been indexed. Is there anything wrong having 2 sitemaps? Why XML sitemap not been indexed? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Migrating login page from website: SEO impact
Our current login page looks like www.website.com/log-in/. We are planning to migrate it to a sub directory login.website.com. For years, our login page is the top landing with highest visits after homepage. If we migrate this now, are we going to loose traffic and drop in rankings? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
New Website launch, asking for feedback
Hey Guys, I just launched my new website. I just asking around for feedback. Please check it out if you have time and let me know www.benjaminmarc.com
Web Design | | benjaminmarcinc1 -
Need to rebuild client's flash website
I am working with their web designer and need to figure out a way to rebuild their site which is currently all in flash. I was wondering if there was a way to do this without spending a ton of time in completely re-doing the site from scratch.
Web Design | | awalker840 -
Where should I spend Money on my website?
My website is www.capitolshine.com what do you think? Where should I spend money to enhance SEO search results? I do have a limited budget but the company is growing quickly and I might have more funds to invest in a few months. Where should I spend money now (less than $500 per month) and where should I spend money in the future? I am afraid the person who coded my website wasn't well versed on SEO. There also might be coding errors. I'm trying to work through the errors myself via the repots from SEOmoz.
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
Redesign of an ecommerce site
I was just wondering how we should deal with filters and pagination with our ecommerce website. We can do nofollow or noindex, follow or canonical for both filters and pagination. Which one we should choose and why? By the way we are trying to create more sub categories to avoid too many pages but we have 1,000s products and we still end up with a quite high amount of pages. I've read a few conflicting seomoz QA about this issue. Many Thanks
Web Design | | Jvalops0