Site Redesign Question

Would Google consider this cloaking?

[elklabone]

I just got done reading this thread on site redesigns in the Google forum:

[webmasterworld.com ]

Looks like redesigning your site can have a negative impact on your Google rankings.

We have a site that ranks well for our keyword, in fact our livelhood depends upon this site.

We'd like to do a redesign on the site, but I don't want Google to drop us.

Here's a crazy thought... I'd like your feedback on this.

Let's assume that someone does a redesign of their established ,well ranking site... but only forwards traffic there by detecting browser, and sending people there who are IE 5.5 or Firefox 1 or higher.

85% of your visitors would see the new site...

Googlebot, and other spiders, and people with old nasty browsers would see old site (which would continue to be viewed as unchanged by Google).

Would this be considered "cloaking" or is this acceptable since you're forwarding new browsers to the new layout, and old browsers to the old layout?

--Mark

[phpmaven]

elklabone,

"a crazy thought" is a good description ;)

I would say that you should not even think about redesigning your site if it is ranking well and your livelihood depends on it. If you must redesign it then DO NOT rename your pages. Doing so would be suicide as far as your Google rankings are concerned.

What you described doing would certainly be considered cloaking but would not even be feasible considering how flaky browser detection is.

[incrediBILL]

There is the other option - which is even crazier, I did this recently.

Redesign the site AND change all the page names, but leave the OLD pages intact that the search engines currently see. As they begin to pick up the new pages your old ones will slowly fade from the index.

[phpmaven]

Yes, that would work eventually, but you need to ask yourself if it's really worth it to change the names of your pages. This is something I read recently which I agree with wholeheartedly:
[w3.org...]

[elklabone]

OK, thanks for the information.

I realize we're in the cloaking forum, but I'm getting some good feedback here, and I appreciate it.

The page in question is my 'index' page which shows up when you load

www.mydomain.com

the page that shows up well in the serps for us, is this homepage.

Two questions.

Would changing the rest of the site (but no index) have any potential effect on the SERPs for index? I wouldn't think so... but I'd like your feedback.

Other question. What if the changes are cosmetic, and the underlying page text doesn't change (much). I mean, it doesn't matter to google what the banner image at the top of the page looks like, right?

Again, we're ranking well in Google (and have for a couple of years), oh, we also have lots and lots of good incoming links.

--Mark

[PatrickDeese]

I would say that the definition of cloaking is presenting different information to the search engine crawlers than you do to your human visitors.

What happens when googlebot uses one of its non-published IP addresses and finds your site "tastes" different?

[elklabone]

I'm not talking about doing browser detection anymore, I'm must asking how much on the site can change without us losing our rankings...

Can I change the rest of the site (and not the page that ranks well)?

Can I change the homepage if the majority of the text stays the same?

--Mark

[too much information]

I've redesigned and renamed several times and not lost my ranking. The trick is to use a 301 redirect from any discontinued page to the new version of that page.

If you are ranking well, try to maintain your content, that's about the only thing you don't want to change too much.

[volatilegx]

Wow, if your site is already ranking well under its current design, and conversions (sales) are happening at a reasonable rate, then why change it at all? If you must do a redesign, get a new domain name and host it there.

[PatrickDeese]

I redesigned a site, keeping all old URLs intact and held my breath. I was ready to reupload the old site at the drop of a hat if I noticed any ill effects.

The site went from #2 to #1 shortly thereafter, and has stayed there ever since.

[incrediBILL]

I even recently changed my oversized menu (huge) on the left hand side from simple links to a series of drop down menus - didn't impact the SERPs as I feared it might.