Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Will ReDesigning my website negatively affect SEO?
-
I currently have a one page website which lists all the company information on one page [domain name is www. bwd . co . za]. It uses javascript for navigation. My challenge is that the layout is outdated and I would like to update it with a high quality WordPress theme which will not be a one-pager.
Currently on Open Site Explorer the website has a domain authority of 30/100 and page authority of 41/100. I've worked hard to push the numbers to get to where they are hence I'm a bit concerned.
Will re-designing my website negatively affect SEO?
-
Hi Bongani,
Here are some extra resources that could help you understand better what happens when you do layout / website changes. This is a video by Matt Cutts posted a wile ago, it also includes some other things but it also mentions things related to the layout:
Will changing the code and layout of my pages while moving to new URLs affect their rankings?
Also, besides what EGOL said I would also add another thing:
- Be very careful about the Wordpress theme you are going to use. It's a good thing you already mentioned that you want it high quality. Just to be sure - I would check for any embeded / hidden links. I had some unpleasent experiences even with "high quality ones".
-
Here are things that can ruin your rankings if done poorly...
-
changing your on-page optimization - this includes titles h1 h2 etc.
-
changing your URLs and not doing a redirect
-
changing your file/folder names in a way that makes them less relevant
-
changing your internal navigation in a way that reroutes linkjuice
-
using code that prevents spidering of internal links
Not directly related to SEO but still important
-
changing your page layout that obscures navigation, links to related items, access to important pages - these can increase your bounce rate
-
design changes that reduce mind-on-task in ways that kill your conversion rate
When you do a redesign you should not be fearing the loss of rankings. Instead this is the time to do an SEO evaluation as part of the redesign. This is an opportunity to move your rankings UP.
-
-
It has been my experience, no.
But a few things I like to keep in mind:
if you have any SEO "juice" associated with your website, try to keep your page descriptions and key words as close to the previous iteration website as you can. This way when search engines troll your site you should keep your status for those keywords.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What to do to index all my links of my website?
Ok, i have a new website, with only 14.000 page indexed by google, but the potential is big, 1-2 million pages. What i have to do, to force somehow google to index my website faster? This is my website: https://vmag.ro/
On-Page Optimization | | TeodorMarin0 -
Does Bolding Text Have Any Impact on SEO?
Someone told me it does but I thought that was old school way of thinking. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | tryfantasy1 -
Can "window.location" javascript on homepage affect seo?
Hi! I need to add a splashpage to my wordpress site. I use "window.location" javascript on the homepage to redirect on the splashpage (controlled by cookie to redirect only for the first access). Can this technique affect the SEO on homepage? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | StudioCiteroni0 -
Are flip books - pdf readers on websites SEO friendly?
I have a client with bar, most of their content is menus that are displayed in a flip book format. Is this content indexed by search engines, and if so, are they of any value for ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | SteveK640 -
Getting access to clients websites for onsite seo
I understand on site seo fine, as I have tweeked up my own website a fair bit. But I am thinking about doing Onsite and Offsite SEO for clients, as I have had a few request now. So my question is what is the best way to get access to clients websites. So I can make the required adjustments. I have one client, who had a company create a website for him, but they have since closed down.
On-Page Optimization | | aussieseoguy0 -
What is the most SEO friendly Shopping Cart?
What is the most SEO friendly shopping cart? I have been using zen-cart for 6 years. Seems Google doesn't like it as much as other carts. I started a new site about 6 months ago using Magento. When I build links to this site the terms move. The terms are very similar. So I would imagine the competition is the same. I am curious if anybody has tried with different carts and found anyone to be better than the others. Also the new site has about one tenth the amount of products but has a lot more pages indexed.
On-Page Optimization | | kicksetc0 -
Generic domain for SEO versus Brand name
I am currently building a retail e-commerce site in a highly competitive area. We have a generic brand name; e.g. kitchen-knives.com and we also have another brand name, e.g. 'slycers.com' We have 3 options that I can see and I would like to know which is better for SEO. Build generic.com as a blog site. Link to brand.com 301 redirect from generic.com to brand.com. Use generic.com as anchor text in all links 301 redirect from brand.com to generic.com . Use generic.com as anchor text in all links Also, if there are other better options, then I would appreciate the input! thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cestor0 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0