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
-
What website changes (technical) SEOs can ignore confidently? Google's perspective!
Hi community members, I am looking after SEO at our company and there are lots of changes happening about our website; especially technical changes. It's hard for me to look after every deployment of the website like change of server location, etc. We generally agree that every change related to website must be notified by SEO to understand the ranking fluctuation and how search engines welcome them. I just wonder what technical deployments of a website I could confidently ignore to save time and give a go ahead to technical team without interrupting or waiting for my approval. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz1 -
We're considering making notable changes to our website's navigation. Other than 301 redirects from old pages to new, what do I need to consider with this type of move or update?
We would like to make some navigation changes to our website: www.NetGainIT.com, specifically to the services section. I know that I will need a list of 301 redirects if I do not plan on keeping certain pages, but what else do I need to consider?
Web Design | | NetGainTech0 -
Free websites that are good with SEO?
Dear members, I am looking for a free/ almost free website which is good for SEO. For example i am looking at WIX right now but i keeping reading that they aren't optimal for SEO. Does anybody has some tips which website is can use, example weebly, strato, etc?? Many thanks!
Web Design | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Will changing product from Grouped to Simple on my magento category page affect my SEO?
Hi all, A category page on my site http://www.porcelainsuperstore.co.uk/wood-effect.html currently ranks number 3 on Google for the keyword "Wood Effect Tiles" We're currently reorganising some of our product and I would like to know if this is going to affect the SEO and ranking for the above page and keyword. The majority of products on that page are magento grouped products. I would like to change the page so that it displays only the different constituent simple products rather than the grouped products on the category page. My question is, will this have any impact on SEO? I intend on leaving all other data on the category page the same - so the metadata and the description/title etc. Any help/comments would be much appreciated! Ben
Web Design | | piazza0 -
Geo Tagging Your Website?
Is it worth it to do this to your site if it has a local focus? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Thanks! ~Ricky
Web Design | | RickyShockley0 -
Home page redirect - will this cause an SEO problem
Hello, We are using Wordpress to build a wiki site. The wiki plugin we're using (Wordpress Wiki lite) can only be set up on an internal page like nlpwiki(dot)org/wiki Can we redirect the home page to the /wiki subdirectory and use nlpwiki(dot)org/wiki as our home page? I've never done that, just wondering if it will be indexed as the home page or if there are any connonical issues. Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Google Penalizing Websites that Have Contact Forms at Top of Website Page?
Has anyone else heard of Google penalizing websites for having their contact forms located at the top of the website? For example http://www.austintenantadvisors.com/ Look forward to hearing other thoughts on this.
Web Design | | webestate1 -
Does File Compression software on a website benefit SEO?
Hi all. Should we be using File Compression software on our website files for SEO benefit? If so, do you like Deflate or gzip? Thank you for your help! Jay
Web Design | | theideapeople0