How will a sites ranking be affected??
-
Hey guys,
My MD has just put this to me, we have a site the is currently ranked in top 3 for all there chosen search terms. The company is undergoing an overhaul of their design and want a new site to match this.
They have asked how changing the site design will affect their rankings.
More content is going to be added with this there will be new pages links etc
Any information would be greatly appreciated..
Thanks Anthony
-
I think Matt's absolutely right (although Alan's warning are definitely worth noting). It really depends a lot on what "change" means. Even "just a template" could mean that your navigation options move, change, increase/decrease, and that can change your internal PR flow. IF the navigation is the same, and IF you aren't adding a lot of ad space, and IF your content, titles, URLs stay roughly the same, and IF you 301-redirect properly (or don't need to, because URLs aren't changing), then you may see very little long-term impact.
You may see a bounce/shuffle as Google re-evaluates the site - any change can trigger short-term bounce. Other things to keep in mind:
(1) Make sure the new template doesn't radically alter load-times.
(2) If you're adding new content, that should be fine, but if you add a lot of content, you could dilute your index, create duplicates, etc. Plus, you'll be linking to that new content, which may draw internal PR from other pages. It's always a balancing act.
Not to make it sound grim. Plenty of people change their sites with no harm and even for the better (especially if it's better for users). Just go in with your eyes open and plan carefully.
-
Even if no change in the URL structure is done, small changes in content can upset (even improve) the rankings as the keyword placement, density and proximity do change with even slight change/addition in content.
Also, with addition of more pages and changing template you will be altering the internal linking of the site which again will effect the rankings. You will also need to make sure that the crawl pattern should not change with these changes which means if content is closer to start of body tag and then comes the internal links you might want to maintain similar flow in new design.
Even if you do everything perfectly, do set expectation that it might take upto 2-3 months to get back to where you are currently as there are always some fluctuations after site design changes time of which can vary.
-
Hey Alan,
Content is going to stay the same, just with additions.
The old site will be completely removed and replaced with the new design, not just an update of the template.
-
It certainly can affect their rankings, it could improve them or decrease them.
Changing content can have a great affect a well as the design, bad crawlability can also have a great affect.
If the site is generating good income i would not be trusting this job to an amature with a off the shelf CMS.
There is also a change in site structure and 301's to consider.
Depedning in the current site, a rebuilt can oftem be a good chance to fix inbuilt problems. A lot deopends on your choice of devloper.
-
Hi Anthony - I am assuming that the site design change will basically be a change to the template more than the actual content? I think you need to make sure that you plan this carefully, but in my experience the most important thing is to make sure that the titles and other onpage elements stay the same, so that you are less likely to upset your current rankings. When you redesign the site are you going to keep the same URLs as you currently have or will this change? If this is the case you need to make sure you have mapped all the old URLs to their new corresponding ones using 301 redirects. I would also look at your current onsite menu structure and internal links between pages and make sure that you try to keep this the same. If you plan this carefully and make sure that you keep the current content, but add to it then there shouldn't be a negative effect on your rankings. While the redesign is being done you could actually plan on improvements like you have mentioned more content, you could also make sure you have all the latest Google tracking code for Analytics if you use it. You could also look at all the potential ways in which you could have the new design built to be optimised for site preformance meaning every page loads as quick as possible. Also adding new pages into your structure is another positive step to actually improving your online preformance with this redesign.
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
-
Site is getting crushed by spam traffic and Google Webmaster Tools giving crawl warnings. Also...
Currently hosting a site I'm planning on moving to a new server ASAP, 301 redirecting and have a domain that has nice authority and very old. On the current site I need to clean up the blog. I have a few questions actually.... 1. I'd like to remove most of the blog articles as I want the new site to be very high quality, but isn't it dangerous to do a 301 redirect to the same page for all these articles? 2. I want to focus on the new site as the current site has too many issues but still managing to hang in their. is highly outdated yet I don't want to spend a ton of time on the site before the 301 redirect. With the Pigeon and Panda 4.0 rumors being released soon, I want to get the new site completed ASAP. Do you think it's better if I fix the 3. Would removing cloudflare make things better or worse with the crashing of my site due to high traffic (mainly spam on the blog.) 4. My best article by far is outdated, but should I waste time updating it before redirecting or should I just get the new site going? I did way too many guest posts thinking content is king, but at least checked the outgoing links Domain Auth, Page Auth, and MozTrust in OSE, but first off I'm going to remove a page that mentions I'm looking for guest bloggers. I tried to keep the posts relevant but at the time you could get away with 5. Anything I can do to slow down these spammers on Wordpress? I noticed most of them are checking for vulnerabilities but I'm keeping it up to date, have caching setup. Thanks!
Web Design | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Thoughts on our Agency Site
Hi all, We'd all welcome opinions on our digital agency site http://www.newbrandvision.com/. We are in the planning stage of launching a new site; and we'd welcome any UX or SEO thoughts. It's a strange one but our agency has been around since 2002, and we operate in the heart of London; however we don't rank anywhere near the first page for "digital agency in London" or any long-tail /semantics around this. We feel that it's pretty clear from search and when landing on the site what we are; but would welcome any general thoughts as to why we aren't ranked that highly. Much appreciated!
Web Design | | Tangent0 -
Image with 100% width/height - bad ranking?
Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.
Web Design | | GeorgFranz0 -
The impact of using directories without target keyword on our Rankings
Hello all, I have a question regarding a website I am working on. I’ve read a lot of Q en A’s but couldn’t really find the best answer. For one of our new websites we are thinking about the structure of this website and the corresponding URL-structure. Basically we have a main product (and a few main keywords) which should drive the most traffic to our website, and for which we want to optimize our homepage. Besides those main keywords, we have an enormous base of long-tail keywords from which we would like to generate traffic. This means we want to create a lot of specific pages which are optimized. My main question is the following: We are thinking of two options: Option 1: www.example.com/example-keyword-one Option 2: www.example.com/directory/example-keyword-one With option 1 we will link directly from our homepage to the most important pages (which represent our most important keywords). All the pages with the long tail content will be linked from another section on our website, which is one click away from our homepage (specifically a /solutions page which is linked from the footer). All the pages with long-tail content will have this structure www.example.com/example-keyword-one so the URLs will not contain the directory /solutions With option 2 we will use more subdirectories in our URLs. Specifically, for all the long tail content we would use URLs like this: www.example.com/solutions/example-keyword-one
Web Design | | NielsB
The directories we want to use wouldn't really have added value in terms of SEO, since they don’t represent important keywords. So what is the best way to go? Option 1, straightforward, short URL’s which don’t really represent the linking structure of our website, but only contain important keywords. Or option 2, choose for more directories in our URLs which represent the linking structure of our website, but contain directories which don’t represent important keywords. Would the keyword ‘solutions’ in the directory (which doesn’t really relate to the content on the page) have a negative impact on our rankings for that URL?0 -
From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?
We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!
Web Design | | _Thriveworks0 -
Why do site links appear under one keyword and not another? Any ideas?
Hi everyone, I have a client whose website is doing the strangest thing. When I search the branded keyword (the company name), Google doesn't show any site links under the result. However, when I search for the company name plus Inc., I do get site links. Now, the website is ranking first in both searches, so that's not the issue. And, as near as I can tell, the site only contains one or two uses of the company name plus the word "inc." Most of the text on the page and all of the meta data only uses the company name, and most of the links that connect to the site use only the company name as well. Even the Who Is for the site doesn't use the term "inc." And ideas what might be going on? I know Google says that the process is still automated but for the life of me I can't figure out what kind of automated process would result in these results. Thanks! Megan (Rebecca's minion)
Web Design | | RebeccaRalston0 -
I've set up my own site which is still fairly new but I'm a bit concerned that there is a bloackage SEO wise somewhere because when I try to crawl the site on SEOmoz it only crawls one page.
I'm really baffled and none of my research has shed much light on it. My url is www.emporiumofmanliness.co.uk I'd really appreciate any help! Thanks
Web Design | | JoshED0 -
Mobile sites! Any advice or suggestions for building one?
Hello Mozland, I'm looking to have a mobile site built. We have a fair amount of traffic coming from smart phones, tablets etc and want to capture this traffic better. Do you have any advice on how to have it built properly, if/how it can be optimised, what good features to include, or anything else you think might be of help? Many thanks Martin
Web Design | | Martin_S0