Hi, I have an 3-4 years old website built in HTML. Its well indexed in searching engines and getting good traffic daily. Its have about 400 static web pages with same design on every page. I want to give this site a new design but without affecting my traffic and losing ranking in Google? Can anyone please suggest me what should I do? How can I add a new design to my site without affecting its current ranking? Any help will be highly appreciated. Regards HZ
Are you using CSS , If the answer is yes , it will not much difficult to change the design of your website. This could be done with out affecting the ranking and traffic of your website.
Hi, I am using a HTML theme. I made a DWT template file and applied to all web pages. Can you please elaborate the steps how can I change the design of an existing site? Regards HZ
If you are using DWT template then all you have to do is change that to adjust the layout of the pages. If you want to do minor changes i would just adjust the CSS of the page. You shouldnt lose your rank by changing the layout of your website, just make sure you keep the same meta data in the headers. If you have any more questions feel free to email me dan/at/danramosd.com or send me at tweet @danramosd
Hi, Thanks for the reply. Actually, I want to do it myself. Well, putting the new DWT template on the new pages is fine but how can I put on the old pages? Regards HZ
Not too sure if i understand what your asking. If you dont have a DWT for the 400 pages you currently have you unfortunately will have to edit each one manually. First you would create your DWT file with your new design and then go through each one of your html files, copy the content you want and then create a new page from the DWT with that content in it. Do you have anything online I could take a look at and possibly give you better help?
Hi, Well, I have DWT for the 400 pages. What I want to know is how to use new DWT on the old 400 pages without affecting their current ranking in Google? Regards HZ
I found an answer on a similar thread "No, your PR won't be affected. PR has nothing to do with your own site, in short it's about how many and who links to your site. PR is one of about 200 variables Google uses to determine the search results for any given search phrase. One ore more of those variables might be affected when changing templates." Original thread is http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=651412 The only recommendation i would give you is to keep the meta data (page descriptions and what not) the same. Does this help?
The inner linkings should not be affected. Changing the design of the template should just change your design not really the links unless you change links in your template manually. Assuming you are using the same filenames for all the html files you should be fine.
Hi, I concluded from all this discussion; I will not change the file names of the pages. I will not change the Meta Information of the pages I will not change the inner linking of the pages. I will not change the incoming links to the pages. Sticking to the above and applying a new HTML design to my site will not affect my current ranking in the Search engines. Regards HZ
i would like to know what happened to your website's ranking now? does changing your design affects the ranking?
Hi, I didn't applied it yet. I wanted to be make sure that the site's ranking will not be effecting before I continue with it. Regards HZ
I recently changed my site's design, but it didn't affect the ranking negatively. Maybe because the design is still search engine optimized.