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 My challenge is that the layout is outdated and I would like to update it with a high quality WordPress theme which will not be a one-pager.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
-
OnPage SEO
I am about to start my website http://i-love-skiing.com/. I would like to know what OnPage ranking factors should I consider while launching or building my website. I want to rank higher on search results.
On-Page Optimization | | TheresaWoods0 -
Less Tags better for SEO?
I am currently reviewing my strategy when it comes to categories and tags on my site. Having been no-indexed for some time, and having many tags with just one entry I am thinking that this is not optimal for SEO purposes. This is what I am planning: Categories - Change these to Index, but only after adding a hundred words or so by way of introduction (see this example - https://www.besthostnews.com/news/hosting/a-small-orange-news/). With the categories I am thinking of highlighting key articles as well to improve link juice distribution to older articles that are important. Tags - About half my tags have only 1 entry, with a few more just having 2 entries. I am thinking of deleting all tags with just one entry, and trying to merge those with just two or 3 entries where it makes sense to do so. I will keep these as no-index, but I think this will mean more optimal distribution of link juice within the site. I would appreciate your thoughts \ suggestions on the best practices here.
On-Page Optimization | | TheWebMastercom0 -
HTML Site SEO (NO CMS)
I have got a client site, which is dated (2007) and has not been shifted to any recognised CMS yet. It is HTML based. Is it possible to SEO on such a site? Is it even worth it? If it is possible to do SEO on this, any suggestions will be highly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | ArthurRadtke3 -
Does the link title attribute benefit seo?
Hello, Anyone could tell me the benefit SEO of link title attribute. Is **Link Title **ranking factor? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Website accessible on http and https. Is it bad?
We noticed that our website is accessible on: http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com Both the versions have page rank of 4. Though on https version we have added canonical tag indicating http:// version as preferred. Is this fine or we need to use 301 redirect and let the site be accessible only on http:// version??
On-Page Optimization | | CyrilWilson1 -
Analyzing word count on page SEO
Hey guys quick question, when I am analyzing/ doing word count for a particluar key word and I want to make sure that i am no where near Keyword stuffing, does Google consider the alt and title tags keywords of images as part of the KW count when looking for on page Keyword stuffing. For example. let say I have a page that i just created with 1000 words. and Only 2 of the words are my target Keywords. Then, if i add a picture and add the keyword to both the alt and title tag and description of the image, does google now consider the "page" to have a total of 5 keywords? Also, a lot has changed recently since penguin and panda, is there a good rule of thumb for what ratio to stay under as far as keywords to text.?
On-Page Optimization | | david3050 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0 -
How do Maximize WordPress with 2 SEO Plugins
I have 2 WordPress SEO Plugins, Yoast and All-in-One SEO. I have tried like heck to make them work together, but every time I crawl my site here, I get multiple error messages. My question is, how can I tweak the title settings to avoid having multiple meta desctiptions, titles etc.
On-Page Optimization | | TheSportsDaddy0
