I have a client who has a website that has been on line for 10years. It has a very high ranking for some key phrases on google. My client would like a new design for their website, but will use the same text content. Does anyone know if a new design would hurt their rankings on google?
They will still be using the same domain too. so nothing would change except for the look of the site.
Normally, if the content stays the same, and only the design of the website changes, there should be no consequence for the websites high rankings.
However, if with the design, the structure is also changed, this CAN influence the rankings. For instance, if you change your titles, or put words in <h1> tags that weren’t there before, this will influence your rankings (putting the keywords in <h1> tags will benefit the rankings).
Most important is to keep all the urls the same, never ever change those!
08.November, 2009 um 5:59 pm
For the most part if the layout of the templates will be the same and only graphical elements change then it won’t effect the sites ranking.
You should however look out for the following. Make sure that they use the same platform and that the URL for the inner pages don’t change.
If the new design will incorporate new flash and or java elements then it can hurt and effect your rankings. Make sure that all java scripts are pointing to external folders so that the search engines are not wasting their time crawling through your java code.
Also the CSS can effect your ranking sometimes it will shift your content lower down on the page and the crawler won’t get to.
You need to be careful not to make drastic changes with the code of the site and you should be fine.
References :
http://duvid.com/blog
08.November, 2009 um 6:23 pm
Normally, if the content stays the same, and only the design of the website changes, there should be no consequence for the websites high rankings.
However, if with the design, the structure is also changed, this CAN influence the rankings. For instance, if you change your titles, or put words in <h1> tags that weren’t there before, this will influence your rankings (putting the keywords in <h1> tags will benefit the rankings).
Most important is to keep all the urls the same, never ever change those!
References :
Top 5 SEO Tips to get started -> http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/04/top-5-seo-tips-to-get-started/
08.November, 2009 um 6:49 pm
If certain pages are ranking really well for their keywords, do your best to disrupt them as little as possible. It’d be a real shame to lose all the progress you client’s made in the search engines because of some oversights in your redesign.
However if you are redesigning with the same content, same navigation structure and use the same on page optimization factors then hopefully it won’t affect the PR much.
References :
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1293777