i'm planning a big redesign project for our website right now, and i wanted to get some advice from others that may have been through the same process. basically, we're re-doing our whole site from scratch. because we're going to be using database driven content and php, we're most likely going to be changing all of our filepath names. which means that our old pages won't be around anymore. our main concern is in regards to what will happen to our rankings once we decide to replace our old design with the new one. i know that we're going to lose some traffic, but does anybody know how we can take some preventative measures? i figure one way that we can keep most of our traffic is by 301 redirecting all of the old pages to the new ones. is that a viable solution?
as long as your backlinks are still pointing to you , you should be good. just keep the meta tags in tack.
I am planning on doing a massive re-design too, and I am worried about my rankings. Any other tips are appreciated.
As long as you don't change the content and backlinks are still pointing to your site SERP will not affected.
If you redo your architecture (internal nav and urls) you may experience a shift in rankings, sometimes design can also cause a shift if the on-page becomes weaker or even over worked. If you have great rankings, one possible solution is to keep the structure and naming conventions the same or similar as this will cause less of an impact in the overall code. Design changes that we have seen and implemented usually have caused the sites to rank better. However if you change all the content and the design, you increase your risk to go in either direction. Building some good links during the change and even before it, can help offset any major issues. There are so many "ifs" in everything that its best to be aware of potential issues and do whats best for the site and/or the business.
if your backlinks and site urls do not change , your ranking will not effected from your design change
yeah, i'm pretty sure our internal nav is going to change along with most of our filepaths. right now our url's are way too long, and everything is just chaotic. i know for sure that our new design and structure is going to be much more se friendly, but i'm trying to avoid a serious drop in rankings. i figure the pages that we are ranking well for, we can 301 to the new product page. are there any precautions for doing so?
There's a good article on SEO book called How to: Move a Website...Should You Fear 301 Redirects Hurting Your Rankings?. It talks about moving domains, but as you're changing every filename on the site you might pick up some tips.
HuH? Did you read this? Anyway, even tho you are prepared to do a 301 redirect, if you can keep the same filepath of the pages it would be better. Also check the structure of the pages and how you have used internal linking, content, and keyword placement within the page. Other ways you will have to scale up through the SERPs once again.
well, i think the good thing is that 99% of our inbound links are pointing to the homepage right now. since i figured that we would probably be changing some filepaths, i haven't been building links to any of our other pages. once we get the site up and running, then i'll be able to start "spreading" the links out.