I believe the answer to this question will be NO (based on a tiny bit of experience) Here's the question... I have a network of blogs that are placed on Page 1 or 2 of Google Search Results for their respective keywords. Recently I found out that this theme is totally incompatible and unbearable when being viewed from Internet Explorer... This is not something that I can dismiss since (sadly) 20% of my visitors use IE. But at the same time, I would rather let 20% of my visitors think they are looking at a website from 1995 than lose my awesome spot in the Search Engine rankings. So... I'm not willing to sacrifice SERP for a new Wordpress theme... Do I even have to worry about that? I know there's people out there who have changed themes, so my question to you is What effect did that have on your SERP if any? My theory is... the content is the same... the posts... the tags... the categories... if those are ALL the same, then I don't think switching to a basic theme would do any harm. Right now I have tested this theory on just 1 of the 15 blogs... if it passes the test, I think it is safe to apply to the other 14 blogs, but in the meantime, I wanted to see if anyone can respond to this from their experiences. Thanks for reading!
It might dance for a bit, then get back to the same spot. If the new theme does proper on-page SEO then there's nothing to worry about. Just don't do anything dramatic, like change from full posts on the front page to excerpts, because then you might get into some trouble -- again, due to on-page factors. All in all, change your theme only if you know what you're doing.
Those are some good rankings. Don't risk it. The real impact will depend on how similar or drastically different the two themes are. If the change affects your link structure it could cause big problems for your ranking. Try seeing what you can tweak with the existing theme's code first. If it's just cosmetic you may be able to make small adjuments to improve the appearance in IE.
A crappy theme can lead to a huge bounce rate which Google does take into account. Since the OP mentioned that the site looks '95-ish, I guess he's talking about a total revamp.
No.. WORDPRESS Theme Change will not have any negative affect on the site's SERP. Make sure there are changes only in design and not in other parts like URLs, content, etc.
What if you choose a stock theme with 100 lines of Javascript code? Isn't this an on-page factor? Gotta love them DP 'experts'.
Hi, I am agree with webmindz24 because that use only your website design not only your link URL other effective page.
A change in theme for a CMS doesn't only change the design itself but a lot of other aspects of the website. Just make sure you get a theme that ranks good for SEO. Thesis I hear is one of the best at the moment but personally, you can SEO any theme yourself with a little bit of HTML, PHP and CSS knowledge .
Thanks for all the responses. From your responses, overall it seems like it will be safe to make this change and at the very worst I will see a little "Google Dance"... I have chosen my theme and it has great marks on a few sites that I trust and most importantly, it looks the same in every browser... Heck I'll even throw the name of the theme out there, it's called "StudioBlue" (demo here: http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/StudioBlue). I really WISH that I was testing all of my blogs for compatibility on every browser all along, but sometimes you have to learn from experience I guess... plus I never realized just how pathetic MSIE really is. As a matter of fact, here's a little story: I have 4 blogs that I purchased from another webmaster who was using the default WP theme. When I transferred these blogs to my host, I immediately applied my theme and sidebar style, but kept published posts as is and weeks later, none of the 4 blogs moved... ok... I'm lying... one of them was on page 2 and moved a few spots down... and next week moved up to bottom of page 1, but nothing significant. So from my own experience the answer would be that it is SAFE... UNLESS, maybe, as one person suggested you choose a poorly designed WP theme that is cluttered and is penalized on the basis of it just being a crappy theme... but not as much because of the actual switch. But I still wanted to see if anyone has had a bad experience with this situation because this is going to be a major change with about 15 blogs involved and there is a lot on the line... so a little paranoia applies here
The theme looks nice, so the bounce rate shouldn't increase. But its on-page SEO is quite far from perfect. You may want to hire a designer to do some minor adjustments. Other than this... best of luck!
Thanks pigpromoter... I think I have an idea what you mean by lack of on page SEO... but may I ask specifically what it's missing? do you mean as far as how the theme doesn't show tags or categories by the post? The theme comes with a control panel that allows a lot of customization and my version has quite a few differences from the demo theme. But as a newbie myself, it would still help me to know where it could improve in regards to on page SEO? I should be able to tweak the code myself if needed because the php files are laid out as neatly as I have EVER seen in a WP theme. Thanks a lot
Well, there are bits and piece of inline CSS. Then the content starts at line 130 or so. And probably some more boo-boo's. It shouldn't be a major concern, but if the current theme is doing better you may drop a spot or two.
I see... well I can probably research and work on that, I wonder how my previous theme would compare... I'm not really good at evaluating stuff like that. This is the theme that I'm changing FROM because it's horrible with MSIE... but I didn't mind it in Firefox/Chrome: http://wp-themes.com/third-style/?TB_iframe=true&width=1153&height=805 How much better/worse is the SEO there?