Will changing the title of previous topics affect google results?

[Xee]

Hi all, just had a quick question about google results. I help run a sports forum and currently all our topics as seen as "Forum Name • Topic Title". I think that links to topics would appear much more user friendly if I switched the naming to "Topic Title • Forum Name". My question is, would this change affect previous links in any negative way or will google simply update past topics with the new naming convention? Thank in advance.

[Yanbo]

Hi

My opinion is that Google will update old topics with new title and new naming conventions should help you rank better for topic title. There shouldn't be any negative effects of this change.

Kind regards

Bojan

[marcinlejman]

Hi Xee,

as long as you only change titles, you should be fine, and the change can actually improve your rankings.

Just one thing to keep in mind - make sure that by changing the titles, you don't change your URL structure at the same time. I know of some forum scripts with SEO extensions where URLs are directly tied to titles. Changing the entire title structure would result in changing all URLs, and that could destroy your rankings, at least temporarily.

[Xee]

Good point, Marcin. I'm not using those mods as it seems Google indexes my pages fine. Thanks for the advice.