Could Website redesign be a cause of drop in rankings?
-
We had a complete redesign of our website and moved it over to wordpress several months ago. As url's changed, we had appropriate 301 redirects done. Rankings for our top keywords dropped, but others remained intact.
Our SEO company told us rankings drop when a redesign is done, but I thought if we did all redirects properly (which they approved), it wouldn't be much of a problem. Additionally, we've been steadily adding good new content.
Any advice?
-
If you still kept the same platform and haven't touched any on-page factors like META tags and such, then simply changing the design the correct way shouldn't affect the rankings negatively. If it's done the right way, then your rankings will stay that same (or) if might just DROP in rankings A LITTLE BIT. Again, only if done the correct way.
-
Without knowing the exact URL and which pages were redirected it is difficult to predict why your rankings have dropped. I've made a laundry list of areas that may be causing the issue.
1. Onsite Factors have Changed
If the content on the website has change significantly then your website may be less relevant to the keywords you are targeting. That could cause an instant drop. I would also check the onsite factors such as Title tags and URL structure.
2. Speed
I personally use WordPress so I know it's quite speedy, however, if your new site has a slower load time that can sometimes lead to a drop in rankings. Did you move to a new host after the redesign? If the new host is slower that could also be causing the problem.
3. Internal Linking Structure
Did your old website has a significant amount of internal links that were passing juice? If the new design doesn't feature internal links that could be the cause.
4. Double check the 301 redirects
I'd ensure that the SEO firm you are working with has actually completed the redirects. It may also be worth while to check your domain authority to ensure that you have actually redirected all of the pages that were passing value. If your domain authority has dropped, that may be an indication that not all of the important pages have been redirected properly.
5. Submit your new sitemap
It may be as simple as Google has not yet had an opportunity to index all of the new pages properly. I'd ensure you do a sitemap submission through the webmasters interface just to make sure.
Once again I don't have enough info to provide you with an exact solution, however, these are common ranking issues and may be worth investigating.
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
-
Setting up analytics for a website redesign
Hey all, so in the past when I make changes to a site, I make the changes, review the analytics in the wake of the changes, analyze and go from there. Little things here and there, no biggie. With my new company, we're doing a full website redesign from scratch (Currently on Wordpress, moving to custom). They are asking me about analytics and reporting and I was hoping to get some insight here. When the new site is ready, they are launching it at www2.ourdomain.com and sending 25% of traffic to ourdomain.com to that with the other 75% going to www.ourdomain.com (current site). So two questions- how would you go about setting up analytics for that? And how do you ensure the www2 version doesn't get indexed but stay in Google's good graces? If you de-index your "home page" that 25% are seeing I can't imagine that's helpful for SEO. Hopefully that makes sense! Trying to look at how to A/B test to ensure the new site is working and converting before pushing all traffic to it.
Web Design | | DanDeceuster0 -
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 -
Does too much inline CSS impact SEO rankings
Hello, Does implementing a lot of inline CSS have a negative impact on SEO rankings? I imagine it could affect page speed, but any other issues I might run in to?
Web Design | | STP_SEO1 -
Heavy rank drop post migration
Our website has been migrated from Joomla to Wordpress at the end of 2015 and we have tasted the loss of 20% of the traffic. After an year at the end of 2016, we have relaunched the website in same word press with new theme. Again we lost n rankings and traffic. I would say ranking. Because mostly people land on our website by searching for our brand. Now we almost went invisible for "keywords" we been targeting. We have checked all the possibilities like duplicate content, redirection, alt tags, speed, canonicals, backlinks, etc..and couldn't find what is hitting us. What could be such strong factor hitting us ?
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Conversion drop after site move
Have just migrated current and active site to Magento 1.9 and a new hosting package (dedicated and reasonably powerful for what we need). But we seem to have had a drop in conversion rate. I don't really know whether it's anything to be concerned about the moment. I've set up extensive server level 301 redirects for old pages. Would be glad of any thoughts? Thanks you
Web Design | | seoman100 -
What to Look for in a Magento Website Developer?
I am considering moving 1 of our sites to a Magento e-commerce platform. If I went down this route we would be keen to find someone who we can hire in-house. However I have never hired a web developer before. What should a developer with experience of launching and building Magento-based e-commerce websites have on their CV? What should I be looking for in terms of knowledge? Any help or advice welcome!
Web Design | | DHS_SH0 -
Tips on website redesign on site with messy URLs?
So I've inherited quite a messy website. It was in drupal and the owner wants it in wordpress. One of the problems is the link paths. Should I try to recreate them exactly? i.e. something/somethingelse/page/ or use redirects (which I'm not confident in doing). Also, some of the pages end in .html, others in a back slash and others without slahes, there's no consistency. Do you have any tips in general? I remember an older seomoz blogpost about successful website relaunches (with press releases and mass emails and stuff being sent out on launch to boot). Thanks!
Web Design | | seonubblet0 -
Does on page links have an effect on SERP rankings with PANDA
I have been doing some competitive analysis basing my company on others and have noticed a pattern. Very high ranking sites seem to have limited the internal and external on page links on their subdomains to under 100. my site has a lot of links but all are relevant and lead to unique content. I am interested to know if anyone else has noticed this pattern in changes in the SERP results. bIs google now penalizing pages with to many on site nav links? And if a full site restructure is needed to allow google to index and rank these pages or if a it is a non issue and does not need to be addressed. Panda confuses me!!!!! HELP!
Web Design | | Brother220