New Article - Lost Rankings Due To Site Redesign Or Spam?

[thejenn]

Authored by: Jill Whalen

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/wha.../0419_jw1.html

A Snippet:

We recently released our new website in Feb. and prior to release we held the number 1 position on Google for [our main keyword phrase] and the number 3 slot and number 2 spots for [additional keyword phrases]. Within days of our release our rankings fell through the roof as did the number of quality Google leads that were coming through our doors. Is it normal to fall like this after the launch of a new site?

[komenda]

I am the innkeeper of a property that does the majority of its marketing on the internet. I am worried about the drop in ratings that i may experience when i post my new web site next month. I am not performing any type of "viral marketing" etc on my site so i am not concerned about the type of activity in this post. Any thoughts on whether i should be concerned about my new site? Should i keep my old site buried within my new site? Thanks for your help.
Ken Komenda

[zoobie]

Thank you for sharing that. A lot here have SEO concerns I guess.

[_detz_]

As long as the content stays the same it should not matter.

[torka]

Actually, even if the content stays the same, if the page URLs change, it will matter very much indeed (as Jill mentioned in the article). As far as the SEs are concerned, new URLs are new pages, even if their content is the same as your old pages, and they will evaluate them as such.

Even with 301 redirects in place, SE rankings and traffic can suffer significantly for a period of months following a redesign if the URLs change. There can also be effects if the site navigation changes as part of the update -- either the actual linking structure or the anchor text of internal links.

--Torka

[_detz_]

Originally Posted by torka

Actually, even if the content stays the same, if the page URLs change, it will matter very much indeed (as Jill mentioned in the article). As far as the SEs are concerned, new URLs are new pages, even if their content is the same as your old pages, and they will evaluate them as such.

Even with 301 redirects in place, SE rankings and traffic can suffer significantly for a period of months following a redesign if the URLs change. There can also be effects if the site navigation changes as part of the update -- either the actual linking structure or the anchor text of internal links.

--Torka

true, if urls change but if seo was good why change the urls?

[torka]

Naturally, if at all possible existing URLs should be maintained. Sometimes, however, there are business or technical reasons why they have to change, and in that case, the webmaster just needs to understand the (temporary) effect and make the best of it.

Sometimes site owners make the change not realizing what the effect will be, and the SEO only gets called in after the fact in an attempt to "fix" the rankings drop.

Unfortunately, sometimes it's an "SEO" who recommends the URL change in the first place, in the mistaken notion that adding keywords to the domain, folder or file name will somehow "improve" the rankings (hint: it won't).

--Torka

[Joseph]

Good information! Thanks for the article.

Joseph

[AndrewHealth]

As long as the web address is the same - your rankings shouldn't have changed that much. The only other thing that would make a lot of difference is how your key phrases are worded in your content - and if Google indexed it differently, you may not have the same SEO on your pages as you had before.

[SeattleCPA]

Torka,

I would not change an existing domain name simply for SEO reasons. But my experience is that keywords in the domain name and in the filenames helps. Are you saying it doesn't? Or, just to very specific, don't you think they help with Yahoo and MSN Search (if not with Google).

Boy, I sure do.