Is it possible to change the design of a website without loosing your rankings? I would like to update the design of one of my sites but I am afraid to because I would hate to loose my rankings and visitors.
yes, you need the pages to be in the same spot---(dont change the file names) when you update the page
In that case, the design doesn't matter so much as does the content and SEO attributes currently responsible for your search engine positions. In fact, you could design a site that's even more search engine friendly -- one that could ultimately improve upon your present rankings. Make it intuitive -- make it for people.
Changing the design will not in and of itself change your search engine rankings as long as you, as was said, keep the pages the same names. You can improve your rankings by having a better design, no java, no flash, text links instead of or as well as graphical links, improved navigation, and a high text to code ratio (more text than code). Lisa
oh, if you are going to change the names, I did this once to improve seo, you can use a 301 redirect from the old page names to the new ones. you might see a short term issue in the search engines but it shouldn't be too terrible as your old pages will still show up in the engines and they will automatically redirect to the new page. Lisa
If you need to change URLs, you can always use mod_rewrite to redirect spiders with a 301 permanent redirect.