Slone - 4:39 pm on Jun 13, 2006 (gmt 0)

I recently did a complete website upgrade, and lost my ranking within 5 days completely. My upgrade only replaced the old design, while keeping all the content in its existing place.

The previous design was your standard validated html 4.01 transitional and css. After the makeover the site now validates xhtml strict, css, and aaa, which I’m pleased.

Following the upload of the new site… 5 days later Google knocked the site completely out of its index. I refused to panic. Two days later sure enough the site showed backup in the index, but pages back from the front. Today (2 weeks later) the site is back on the front page, but sits at number 5 to 8 position. So I imagine I will gain my number 1 slots soon again.

It's been while since I've posted here, but thought my experience was worth sharing.

To answer your question though… I have always believed in meeting the standards as much as possible or you can afford. If one is building a site for the long term, why wouldn’t you build it right for longevity?

Cheers!