Does redesigning a website affects SEO results

[jjv]

We have a website and we are getting good traffic to it. Its a travel related domain registered many years back. Now its ranking high for most of the potential keywords even if it is not at all SEO friendly (Domain is an exact match keyword). We are planning to redesign it. Will that affect the SEO Ranking?

We need to ask some more doubts:

1. When redesigning we are planning to change the inner page URL. So it it wise

to redirect (301) old URL  to the new URL?  Old url will not be there after redesigning. But its currently having page ranks.

2. Can we redirect more than one old url to a single new page?

3. Google new updates said "they will be going to diminish the exact match results domains". Does that updates affects us?

4. Any more suggestions for the redesigning?

[Solvari]

Hi,

To start with: Yes, your redesign it going to affect your rankings. The question is how it's going to change.

Changing your url structure will definitely have quite an impact on your rankings. It's wise to read some more information about the effect of the url structure on SEO. Maybe this is a good one to start with: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

If the old url's won't be accesible any longer you should definitely redirect to the new url's. It is possible to redirect more of your old url's to one new url. After the change in your url structure it might take a while before Google has indexed all your new url's and it's very likely that you'll see a fluctuation in your rankings.

About Google's 'EMD update": You'll have to see over time how that update affects your site.

At least make sure all content is accesible on the new site and don't remove too many internal links to well ranking pages. There are tons of other do's and don't for redesigning your site. I think you can find some very important ones in this SEOmoz guide.

Good luck!

[eyepaq]

My 2 cents:

First of all with any major redesign there will be a lot of changes on the rankings side: those could be positive or negative or a mix of course.

You really need to plan everything with extra care especially if you rank already ...

A good advice is allways to do everthing step by step. That measn: change the design and don't touch the url structure. Change the design but don't inject new pages or delete old ones.

As soon as teh dust is settled with teh design change you can move forward and remove / add new pages and wait again. When everthing is done you can start the redesign of the url structure but again step by step.

In this way you will be able to track and monitor all changes and be able to go back if something bad really happens.

As for the url change - it's a golden rule not to touch those on an existing domain unless it's really really imperative tod o so.

With any url change, even if 301 are implemente correctly you still face a big possibile drop in rankings !

Been there - done that - got burned.

To stay safe, make and bring on the table a contingency plan just in case.

Overview to your questions:

1. When redesigning we are planning to change the inner page URL. So it it wise

to redirect (301) old URL  to the new URL?  Old url will not be there after redesigning. But its currently having page ranks.

** Even with 301 redirects the site will suffer from the url change. It dosen't mean you don't have to do it but just plan it with care and only if it's really really important to move with the change.

2. Can we redirect more than one old url to a single new page?

** Yes.

3. Google new updates said "they will be going to diminish the exact match results domains". Does that updates affects us?

** Doy ou have an EMD and target the keyword that is in the domain ?

4. Any more suggestions for the redesigning?

** Do everything step by step - build a road map / project plan with the changes- don't dive in live there's no tomorrow as you can run into some serious problems.

Everything can be done and usually a redesign is more then welcomed - especially if it's done from an UX point of view. Do plan however everything with extra care.

[polarking]

Would it also be important to keep the content similar to maintain SEO and then change it slowly to prevent a drop?

[kadesmith]

I have recent experience with a very similar situation.  We decided to go ahead and change the entire look of the site and a lot of the content, but we kept the same URL structure.  For one of the main keywords we experienced the following:

Google: We fell from first page to fourth page over a period of 4 months.  We are just now starting to see an uptick in rankings and have climbed back to the 3rd page.

Bing: We climbed from the third page to the bottom of the 1st page over a period of 3 months.

Part of the redesign was to focus our on page optimization results.

In answer to your 4 questions:

1.  Redirect anything that won't be there for sure.  You don't want people clicking an old link just to find a 404 dead site.

2.  Yes you can redirect more than one old url to a single new page, but make sure it is a logical redirect and is helpful to the user.  Don't just do it for fun.

3.  Like Joram said, "You'll have to wait and see"

4.  Don't redesign just because you are tired of the look.  Too many web site owners look at their website everyday and get tired of the look when it is a perfectly fine site.  Have a purpose for redesigning that includes something along the lines of, "This redesign will help my visitors because...."