Does constant change help search engines?

Do website design changes hinder or help search engines

[Stephen Tiller]

Hi Guys

As far as I understand, constant change to a website, especially design does not help you get promoted in the search engines, especially Google.

My bosses are constantly changing my most successful ecommerce website, as opposed to the content on the home page naturally changing or new content being added.

When I research the competition on Google the websites generally appear to be the same design.

I would be interested in the opinions and experiences of others.

Steve

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Mu understanding is that Google likes to see site content changing.

[Stephen Tiller]

Content or design... or both?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Content, unless the changing design involves new content, in which case this would clearly have some effect.

[Stephen Tiller]

okay dokey, can I have a new boss please!

[encyclo]

Changing designs probably won't have much of an effect with the search engines, but it certainly will confuse and returning visitors - so it is best to keep with a consistent look and feel for your regulars.

Does changing the content involve just changing the wording, or does that mean changing page names and file names? The biggest problem with redesigns is that they can leave orphaned and non-existent pages in the index - so you should at least stick to the same structure even if the content is changing.

[Stephen Tiller]

To improve search engine ranking I redesigned the whole website using CSS, cleaned the code, tidied everything up and I was personally happy with it. That one lasted about 3 weeks!

Understandably they (my bosses) want things done fast, so they told me to do it (latest redesign) in what I nickname the mickey mouse way i.e. with Tables.

Consequently I now have a hybrid website of Tables, CSS, redundant code, scrollbar at 800 x 600 which I hate! (I am still learning CSS and therefore not that fast).

I am the sole web person here and don't get time to correct all the "behind the scenes" mistakes.

Yours, frustratingly.

Steve