Changing menus regularly - will this impact SEO

[fionah]

We are working on an internal project, where the website owner is thinking of making regular changes to one or two items on the top level menu. Assuming they redirect the original pages or navigate to them in other ways, is there any other impact on SEO to changing the menu structure? I assume they'd submit new sitemaps after each change.

Many thanks

Fiona

[TimHolmes]

Hmmmm, I think it could slightly affect the internal linking structure and possible mean the loss of important pages being linked together.

However my main concern would be to regular users from a UX perspective. You are clearly going to be making people work a lot harder to find regular content that is possbly the bread and butter traffic for the site. Rather than changing the menu, would it not be better to implement a "New Item" in the menu structure rather than changing it all. Or have a feature banner.

Hope this helps a little.

[fionah]

Thanks - that's really helpful. Yes, I did point out that the UX is going to be a major issue as the users will feel like they are walking on shifting sands... I think we are hoping to push the "What's hot" idea, as you suggest.

Thanks again

[TimHolmes]

Your welcome, good luck with the project

[Zippy-Bungle]

That depends on how often users come to the site. If 90% of visitors are new the UX issue doesn't exist. If 5% are then you'll soon get feedback as to whether it is driving them nuts or not