Hi All, I currently manage a very big Tube website in the Adult market, making a few million pageviews every month. Everything is going ok, but the Design is old and we need to update it. The problem is that the site is very well indexed in Google and we are afraid of losing that rankings if we change the structure. Can you give me some ideas of best practices when upgrading a website Design or give me some feedback if you ever done it? Thanks
If your new design required that your sitemap changes, be sure to reflect the changes with 301 redirects.
Hi all, thanks for the replies. So if I keep the URL structure, even if I change a lot the design or even the programming language it should be fine? I should notice difference in the rankings in the first weeks, right? I've already noticed that when updated a smaller site. Thanks
Also it might change if your site content changes, like that actual text that the robots see. I don't think programming/backend/design changes make too much of a difference in what the robot sees.
Hi, Ok, I will have to update a smaller site first, so I will try to replicate the changes I'm going to have to do in the bigger site to see the impact. A case study would be interesting on this, I found nothing on the web. Thanks again
Hi, As long as, you keep the URL structure intact you Google ranking won't get affected. Design is for humans, Robots doesn't see design they are just interested in the content on the page. You can try to implement the new design on your existing small site to see the impact.