Would Changing the Titles of Root Categories Be Bad?

[Mike.Bean]

I have researched some more effective keywords to change my root category titles to. I am wondering if it would be a bad idea to change these titles considering all the things that could go wrong. From what i'm gathering there are a LOT of things that can go wrong but at the same time these things do need to be changed sometime!

Is this a good or a bad idea & why?

What could go wrong?

Should I try changing the category titles one at a time instead of risking every one of my keywords / category titles not working out in the serps right away?

[BenFox]

If it's just the title tag on the pages then you might as well try swapping out one or two and testing your changes.

If those titles affect the URL of the page or of any other pages then you'll need to consider these changes. Changing URLs is the same as creating a totally new page so obviously this is a bad thing.

If it is literally just a title tag change...I'd try it, you can always roll it back after a week.

[AJPro]

If your changes do affect the urls then make sure you have working 301 redirects ready so the old urls still work.

[BenFox]

Good point

[Mike.Bean]

That is a good idea but in this case that pretty much means redirecting every page on my website

[richpirate]

I change title tags on our massive ecommerce site all the time, it's called optimization

A lot of times I see an improvement in rankings just by doing this.