Global rebuild/redesign

Of a really big site with great rankings

[NazaretH]

I have read a few threads about changing the site design/layout/structure and keeping Google rankings, but the whole issue is still not clear to me, so I ask for your help and advice.

We got a really big (over 50,000 content pages) website with great positions in Google, which it maintains for over one year already. 90% of the site’s pages are indexed and have decent PR (from 3 to 7). The site has good traffic, but conversions are extremely low, so we conducted series of usability tests, totally rebuilt software, and changed navigation (all changes made on test server so far [locally]). Thus, in Google’s eyes it can be defined as a completely new site on the old domain, whereas for users it is a rebirth of the old site, with better functionality. The question is … what can we do not to loose our rankings after rebuild?

Current ranks are mainly gained through effective and over 1,5 years-long links exchange work, but on-page factors also matter of course, but now we want to simplify the homepage greatly, remove directory links from it and leave only one link to the separate directory page, also layout in all content pages will be more simple, while text content will be the same.

Please share your thoughts and observations in terms of how to make the transition as harmless as possible.

So far I can only think of the following:
-we should leave same URLs for all pages (which is not a problem)
-we should leave same/similar title tags for all pages (which is also more or less achievable)
-we should leave as much same text as possible (this one is a real pain, especially with a homepage, which is very simplified after usability changes)
-we should keep same links structure (also a problem – almost entire linking-structure at the top level is going to be modified)

Oh, and one more question, do you think that if we make this change and something goes wrong, we could change everything back and maybe all rankings would be given back.. or is it “one mistake would kill you” thing?

[NazaretH]

Could anybody pleaase share their opinion on this matter, as it is very important for us now and I think such information would be very useful for many other webmasters who plan similar transition. Thank you. :)

[rfung]

I think no matter what you hear here, you'll always end up risking your rankings due to change in your keyword density, positioning, etc. Why? no one ever knows what goes on behind the curtains.

I have a site that's ranked in the first page of a competitive keyword(s) and I am afraid as well of reworking the design/layout/link structure. But in the end, I will have to take that step because I think it benefits the users more than my fear of the rankings.

Maybe that's what you should be focusing on.

[pete_m]

The most important issue is keeping the same URLs. This is important not only from a google/PR perspective, but also for incoming links (which may now break), and existing user bookmarks.

All the other aspects (title tags, link structure) are less important - indeed, the new site may well rank *better* with the changes.

Remember that your google ranking can go UP as well as down :)

The most important thing to you is the number of conversions, not the amount of traffic. If changing the text, structure, etc improves the usability and the conversions, then the amount of traffic should be almost irrelevant.

[Powdork]

There is only one true path, and that is the one you create for the user.

Oh yeah, definitely keep the same urls. And if you're going to bump everything down one link from the home page a site map becomes even more important than before. Also spend more time getting links to the interior directories now.

[wanderingmind]

I did the same thing on a huge site (100,000) pages once. Lost rankings very quickly.

But the new pages were correctly SEO'd and pages deep-linked to from external sites were kept alive.

We returned with better rankings after 2 months.

I also suspect nowadays, sites that change suddenly go into some kind of a waiting period too. I would say, if you want to do this, consider up to 4 months setback. You can also try with keeping the old pages alive and working till new pages are indexed and ranked. So far I haven't seen any problem with that. You can't obviously redirect 50,000 pages to their new versions I suppose.

[NazaretH]

We are going to keep same URLs for all content pages, only navigation and structure of the links pointing to that content pages will change. Most significant changes are with design and with content of the homepage, which now ranks REALLY great, and I mean GREAT, so traffic does matter here. Howerever we do understand that user is more important than search engines, so we will eventually do this chnage, but we want to make as harmless as possible.