Is SEO lost if I redesign my site or content?

Keith,

One of the main ways to lose ranking is by changing page URLs. You can have your SEO "juice" transfer if you create quality redirects to help the search engines know that the old page is being phased out for a new and improved page. Google's Web Master Tools provides instructions for doing so.

Most likely the new format will have better opportunities for utilizing SEO best practices. If this is the case, your risk should be limited or zero.

Just remember your redirect file and make sure you submit a brand new sitemap.xml file to the search engines as soon as your website is redesigned and live.

Rebecca

Rebecca's advice is on target - all in all you should take care to protect the valua that you've created both on a domain and specific page URL basis.

There are a lot of specific pitfalls to avoid - but also some things to think about in a redesign. Don't redesign for the sake of just look and feel ... consider conversion, content quality and SEO as major elements of the redesign. For a quick article and access to a webinar on site redesigns, check out this blog post: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4226/7-Website-Redesign-Tips.aspx

Redesign is a funny thing since so few of us are ever happy with how our site looks or flows ... but there are analytics tools that can help us improve in the ways that are meaningful for our businesses. I encourage you to focus on business goals above all else. SEO, traffic & leads should follow.

Good luck!
Kirsten

In all likelihood, yes. It really depends on the nature and extent of changes you make to the site, but I reckon it is a safe bet to assume at least a short-term impact on your organic search engine traffic following a significant revamp of a site.

Many other experts have already given suggestions above - such as trying to keep the urls the same, or use appropriate re-directs, if the change to url structure is unavoidable. As long as the changes you are doing are more search engine friendly than before and you have taken steps to minimise negative impact with steps such as redirects, you should be ok.

A complete design and content overhaul is also an opportunity to improve upon things that were not ideal previously- for example, getting rid of unnecessary code, optimising content better, taking steps to improve page load times, etc.

@Dennis,
Google released an update today you will be interested in. They offer tips for getting all your content indexed. http://goo.gl/Ytbx1

@Dennis OUCH! I feel your pain! I take it your client prefers pretty over effective. But perhaps all is not lost, and maybe this will help. http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/flash.html

When you redesign your site, do you change graphics/content of webpages or also the site structure as well?

If you change web content, then its a good idea to add keyword titles, h1 and h2 tags. Dont go heavy on the graphics/flash and use common sense in writing text (i.e. dont keyword spam).

If you also change the site structure, then your SEO rankings will surely drop (perhaps in the short run only). If your new site structure is more logical and easy to follow, Google will prefer and reward you with higher rankings. Also make sure you have a sitemap.xml that search engines can find and index.

To preserve traffic from your old site structure, you can always create redirects to your new pages. But you will need to start the process of creating new backlinks to your pages. Good luck.

Zaki Usman
www.TargetInfoLabs.com

Manoj touched on something I wanted to comment on and that is improvement. You didn't say how your SEO is working for you now. Perhaps you're missing some important opportunities. Before you redo your site, then, I'd recommend investing some time in analytics and keyword research to see how far you can go with your SEO. If you find your position is mediocre now and that your site requires a massive restructuring to accomplish your new goals, it might be worth risking a temporary decline only to bounce back much higher. Done right though, you should be able to avoid any loss in position, especially if you apply the great suggestions from others here in this post.

David, as the outside contractor marketing writer, I was not part of the redesign for the new site, and that's understandable. I suspect I am not the only marketing consultant with little or no influence on how the client Website I'm writing for was designed.

From what I had heard and read a while back is that search engines (Google specifically), had added support for scanning flash based content. This would include non-graphic based text in the flash files (those made using the text tool or in the code as opposed to full blown graphics with rasterized text in them). From my understanding it doesn't work perfectly and it would be more ideal to have your copy outside of the flash file, but that it isn't lost completely when inside flash as mentioned above.

The most important comment I've seen on here that I'd like to point on again though is the importance of using type 301 (permanent) redirects if urls are changed. Without this you are dismissing all page rank / link juice value available.

-Jeff

Yes, if you change the content by eliminating the SEO work, you will have problems. This can happen when someone who isn't familiar with why the SEO is the way it is tries to make the site more readable.

I am working with a client site that was changed to Flash and we lost all our SEO rankings overnight. Now I am trying to get them back but the Flash seems to be preventing Google and the rest from seeing/ranking my content any longer. Anyone have any suggestions for regaining web visibility, shy of taking down the Flash site which the client is opposed to doing?

@Dennis did you consider placing the Flash site inside a HTML frame so atleast there is something for Google to find and something for you to optimise... there are several Flash based CMS platforms that do allow for SEO/Analytics

Hey, can someone help - till yesterday my blog http://www.latestautoreviews.com (wordpress based) was receiving almost 4500 pageviews - i added Google XML sitemap for images plugin, and overnight traffic fell to 500!

I realized i lost most of my image rankings due to that stupid plugin! Can someone help me in getting my image rankings back? I disabled that plugin, and regenerated my sitemap, and now I'm going to notify google team through webmaster tools also.

Any other advice? Nothing has changed -- no urls changes, no image changes, no flash stuff - nothing!

David is right. Flash Intro pages animation have NO SEO value, and are blocked on most mobile phone browsers. John talked about the redirect nuts and bolts. I wanted to keep the thread alive since this is valuable info for all.

Thanks Aaron - even I'm waiting for someone to help me out - so pls keep this thread alive :)

Om,

I thought for sure you were not human or your website would turn my browser into cottage cheese. Here are 2 reports that may help you figure out the 5Ws.

http://www.woorank.com/en/www/latestautoreviews.com
SEO: Honestly, everything looks good.

http://pagerank.scrapebox.com/cgi-bin/pr_checker.pl
links: Since you are competing for a million keywords,you can't target anything without blackhat tricks. You should consider using categories (like SUV, crossover, or Hybrid) to focus your traffic to fewer pages. Comparison sites do this with a good deal of success.

Yes depending on the size of the redesign you can estimate the so called pain factor, but if you current website is broken or not working you should consider looking at a redesign as a new SEO friendly redesign will offer a greater benefit than you current website.

Don't risk being left behind with a poor quality website because you are scared of the redesign, any new design done right will offer you a greater long term benefit.

Text in Flash (is actually a graphic of the text) doesn't get read, but if you put the Flash on one layer, and normal HTML text on a layer in back, the background layer can be read. Turn off the background layer. Probably a good idea to have something that could be used to turn it on, but I doubt that is necessary, as I doubt Google checks for triggers to layers being turned on.

There is no surety, but possibility you can keep following points in mind to keep your SEO (again there is not surety)

1. Text should remain the same, or should be optimized further
2. Site should not changed to Flash based animated version
3. Alt Tags (on images), Meta Tags should be kept
4. Create Google Map (XML based) once you are done with your new version of website.