My site is getting incredible results on Google right now. We are getting 1st-2nd page ranking for many great keywords. Unfortunately, in about a month we are relaunching our website with a new design. Our current design is very clean (not a lot of unnecessary html code before the main content). Our new design will be a bit more cluttered in terms of html code, but visually it should look better. Given our great result on Google right now, should I resist changing the design? Will I mess up some magical formula? I think part of the reason why our site rank so well is that we add about 3-4 new pages of good content a day, and that we get many great links from top websites. But what if our current design is also part of that equation. Should I avoid messing it up?
Are your conversions suffering from the current design? Do you plan on changing the content of the pages, or just the layout? Will the URL's change? If so, then do not change the site. I also wouldn't muck with the titles, or the order in which the content appears on the page for the most part (ie, if you have an H1 on the page, it should stay there, etc). If the only thing you are changing is layout, or switching to a cleaner html, or swapping out images, then you should be fine. -Michael
I have to agree with Michael. If your conversions are suffering and you are getting a bunch of targeted traffic, I would probably just work on the conversion aspect.
I wouldn't make any changes as long as you have good results or maybe change the design step by step.
if i were you , i do not make any sharp changes on my sites. if you want to change somethink on your site, do it very slowly
Merely changing the design of the website will not have any effect on its rankings. As far as I know, google does not take the code into account when ranking sites. Just go to a site that emulates search engine spider. You will see what google sees while visiting your site. It does not see your website design, so this should not have any effect on the rankings.
try to keep all navigational links, file names and even the positioning of tags at very position .. even than changes will effect ranking and crawlinbk for few sites depending on the no of pages etc
We have done a complete redesign - new file names for images, different code. Have not noticed any impact on Google. And new design is much cleaner, also optimized our code significantly. BUT! Keep your pages' URL the same!
Keep URLs the same or if neccessary to change then 301 them. The main question in my view is, is the design going to make your site better for your users or conversion? If it is and you plan to continue working on the site then do the design change. Whatever magical formula that your current page design has SHOULD NOT be the main reason of your success. It should be the content or the idea.
I have a site that is page #1 on Google for ALL the major keywords targetted. The problem is that the site is now becoming completely unmanageable and looks cluttered and not easy to read. It is going to have to be migrated to a database AND completely redesigned. In other words everything will change except the domain name. Is this going to kill of the fantastic positioning in Google?
If the design change is really necessary and will be a big improvement for the site, then go for it. Just don't forget to map the old pages to the new ones using redirects and also your links (inbound and outbound).
if you really afraid will lost the rank just try to back up your old design. implemented new one and see how it goes. if it's stay that's fine if it's drop in rank switch back to old design and do same methods to push it back to no.1 again. i think if you changed a new design but keep most content that should be fine. dont forget that content is important for search ranking. Keep it and change other thing should be ok. I also redesign my site quite often and most of the time it's almost completedly new design but same content. as a result my ranking is increase and improve everytime. ^^ i never drop in rank because of redesign though.
Thanks guys, this is very helpful. This is great advice! We didn't really pay a lot of attention to details like H1 or Title tags when we built the site initially. Now that it is doing well in rankings I guess you are right, we should not mess around with the tags. I believe the new design will improve our conversion. Our site will be more professional and we will have much better spaces dedicated to advertising. The content will be exactly the same. The layout might change a bit, but not much. URL will stay the same.
Then it's probably worth it if you do it carefully. If you use CSS for your positioning, you should be able to keep the way the content appears in the source, and the important tags, the same, and move it around without affecting things too much. What you might want to do is try it on a couple of pages first, ones with ok rankings, wait till G re-spiders them (just check the cached dates of those pages in G), and see what happens. If things continue to look good, move on to another section. Also, please remember, rankings can fluctuate in G even if you do nothing whatsoever, or from something you might have done without knowing it. If something does fluctuate, don't jump to conclusions, evaluate carefully, and don't panic. -Michael
I had a complete redesign of a pagerank 5 website last summer. It only took about 2 weeks to get indexed again with the new url's. It was like a little vacation, so if you can afford it go for it! Traffic is one thing but if your redesigning for higher conversion rates then go for it! The only downfall was the cold fusion (crap). We went to a pagerank 4 Of course that's my opinion and story, I suggest you do more research.
well I guess If your site is doing really well why bother changing it? You could risk losing out on viewers if you change what people have come to expect.
IMO, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's all about risk vs. gain. What's the worst that can happen compared to the best that can happen? While you may try to keep things "in order", it's possible through use of tables or CSS that you may indeed "rearrange" the content of your site, so you'll need to be aware of this. Also, adding/deleting graphics will bring different embedded file names in to play, so these could also be issues. Again IMO, if you are going to make changes, you need to have a VERY good reason to do so, not just because you want to "redecorate".
If you're just changing layout of your site I don't think it could affect your rankings. As long as you don't change the content and other aspect that might affect your ranking and If you think that the new design could also attract your visitors then go for it.
If your site has a PR of 3 and above. Redesigning it is no big deal. But surely it will effect some minor keyword rankings.