Comments on: SEO implications for updating your website

By: Zack Katz

Zack Katz — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:49:31 +0000

It depends on what you did during your update. Sometimes, if you change a website drastically, it takes Google (and other SE’s) a while to “trust” the site again. Give it a couple of weeks or a month to see if it bounces back up to where it should be.

Did you change the site content? How about the template code? Did you change the URL structure? Did you make sure to properly 301 redirect the old pages to the new pages?

By: Sargon Odisho

Sargon Odisho — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:43:39 +0000

I have an SEO question for you.
When I SEO redesigned/upgraded my castax.com.au web site from 50 pages to 180 pages I have
experienced that CASTAX did not function good as it suppose to. i.e it
should ranked #1 for keyword “tax agent Sydney” but it is showing in
position #5. also it should show in position number # 1 for “tax agent
Fairfield” but it is not showing at all. Same with many other keywords. It
is not working the way it should be.

I wonder why?
What can be done to fix it?

By: SEO Concerns When Migrating Your Website | The Great Websites Blog

SEO Concerns When Migrating Your Website | The Great Websites Blog — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:44:05 +0000

[...] Denver SEO adds the following point: [...]

By: jemin

jemin — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:14:38 +0000

Really good post, I’m having trouble finding good information on this.

My website CardiffJobs.co.uk has been running for a number of years and we have excellent search engine rankings including many number 1 positions.

After an audit of the website it is clear that we are not SEO friendly and could increase our SEO positions much more and build on our current success with an new friendly SEO built website with great extra content (as we simply don’t have the facilities to upgrade our current site)

I’m worried though that if after 4 years of number 1 postions in google, if over night we change the entire website, structure, format, hosting etc. (even if it is much more SEO friendly and follows all the guidelines much more closely than the current website does and keeps the same domain) that I will drop out of the search engines or lose some rankings as google will “freak out” about the change.

I’ve been advised that 301 redirects are essential but in your opinion do you think google will drop our top rankings for phrases such as “Cardiff Jobs” and “Jobs in Cardiff” f

Am I worrying unnecessarily or is this something that could happen?

By: Zack Katz

Zack Katz — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:20:24 +0000

Matt Cutts talks about this and says:

Note: changing your IP address, webhost, domain name, blog template, and blog version all at the same time is the exact opposite of what you should normally do. It’s better to change only one thing at a time so that if something goes horribly wrong, you can trace what caused it.

Change one thing at a time; change hosting but not your website, or change your website but not your hosting, or change pieces of your site, but don't move to a new CMS platform... You get the idea. Slow and steady wins the transfer race!

By: Zack Katz

Zack Katz — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:33:24 +0000

@ryanre – Definitely, there’s no reason not to do an update. I always propose to my clients that during this time, they do PPC to supplement the decrease in organic visitors.

By: ryanre

ryanre — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:37:37 +0000

One thing that I have noticed with redesigns is that the bounce rate nearly always goes down and the time spent on site goes up. The temporary reduction in traffic is usually well worth the better visitor experience.