Instant ranking - after redesign using new URLs

[wheel]

Does this tell me anything?

I just launched a complete redesign. Old site pages 301'ed to the new pages (new layout, old content) plus a number of new pages.

Less than a day later, Google has me ranking as high as #1 for some of the new pages. One listing even says "- 21 hours ago".

If it makes any difference, it's possible that the pages are on a topic that is fairly 'newsy' right now.

The site's fairly static. In the past I've assumed I'd rank on new content after a week or two. This rush to the top is a bit surprising to me.

Does this mean anything? My site's better? Or are my rankings going to crash in a week?

[tedster]

This lines up with the results of a redesign I helped on - we saw the new urls take over seamlessly. I'd say this is a sign that you had things well handled technically, and that Google already liked the site a good bit. Please let us know if things start to wobble.

[darkyl]

First thing that comes to my mind is that your site might already deserve the better rankings, but something in the layout was dragging it down.
But who knows... please update us on your rankings.

[minnapple]

It could be a honeymoon period.
You should know withing 20 days.

[incrediblehelp]

I think if things were really bad before the redesign and you have done everything right after the redesign I don't see why rankings (traffic) that you gain should not stay. Of course SEO is a consistent process by which you cant just do and leave it alone.

[wheel]

What I did was keep all my old pages the same text content and URL, just with a new design. But at the same time I added a bunch of new pages. i.e. I had a site about red widgets, and I added some new silos on blue and green widgets.

I wouldn't expect the red widget rankings to change and to date they haven't (though it's early). I was just very surprised that my new green and blue widget pages went to the top in < 24 hours. Previously adding new pages on red widgets would rank, but they seemed to take a lot longer than that. That's why I wondered if perhaps the pages were looking like 'news'. Certainly there's a lot of searches for it right now that would have just started (no, it's not weightloss :) ).

[outland88]

Is this a new domain? Was something penalized in the old design or domain?