Site redesigns - 80% drop in visitors/page views

[coachm]

I have two sites that have been great for business sales AND adsense, with excellent niche traffic. But they were ugly and embarrasing, terrible outdated designs I didn't want to change due to concern about drops in rankings.

In June I redesigned one of them, since I couldn't refer my professional clients to the site without feeling humiliated. Now it's nice, easy to use, something I'm proud of.

In November I did the other site. Same deal. Horribly outdated design.

In both cases the headers, descriptions, meta stuff are all unchanged, as is the content. Just look and feel simplified, made more readable, etc.

RESULT: 80% drop in traffic for both.

I know this isn't news, but now what? Wait it out? Fiddle with the sites? Go back to the ugly horrid designs?

What have others experienced? This is and will cost us big bucks.

[Seb7]

You first need to find out from which direction the traffic has dropped. It just from Google? or from advertising? or something else? If you have Google analytics, or something similar, you should find some answers in there.

Most common cause is a drop in the Google SERPs. Check to see which position you website appears under different keywords. Check Google webmaster tools to see if all your pages are being indexed.

Check for any browser issues, was it tested with IE, FF, Chrome etc.

[travelin cat]

Have you checked the loading time of your new designs? If a good portion of your traffic is repeat visitors, maybe they bailed after waiting for the pages to load.

[HuskyPup]

What have you done? Gone from a flat html site to a CMS or something else?

I've read about such instances but fortunately have not experienced it however there may be something significant you've done for this to happen...I hope so otherwise there will always be that doubt about a re-design.

Go back to the ugly horrid designs?

Isn't it worth trying with the November site with it collapsing so fast? If it re-gains its former position then you know something else is affecting it and the first site.

[ken_b]

Did the page URLs change?

[coachm]

Thanks. I obviously need to look into this a little more. First step is to validate that the numbers are real. I may be mistaken and accidentally taken off the tracking codes and such.

But to answer questions, It's all aesthetic changes to make things useable. Decluttering. Menu moving (but mostly all links the same), all in html, no url changes.

I'll check time on page numbers, page load numbers, etc.

I'll report back whether I'm mistaken, and what I find.

[ken_b]

Maybe I missed this, but is it your visitor count that has dropped, or pages per visit, or both?

[StoutFiles]

The redesign have done something with your Google search rankings....and with personalized search being used now, it would be hard to verify this.

[Robert Charlton]

...the headers, descriptions, meta stuff are all unchanged, as is the content....

...It's all aesthetic changes to make things useable. Decluttering. Menu moving (but mostly all links the same)...

Keep in mind that none of the meta elements has any effect on Google rankings. The title element, while extremely important, is technically not a meta element.

On the other hand, the navigation structure, anchor text, and link position on the page can have a significant effect on how well you do on Google.

Did you add or subtract any other links from your pages?

You need to have a very clear idea of what you changed. Generally, a cosmetic redesign... or even a changeover to CSS... with titles, headings, urls, navigation, and text content all unchanged should not affect rankings.

[LostOne]

and with personalized search being used now, it would be hard to verify this.

I keep hearing this, but I don't see any changes. I even checked the local library for SERP positions the other day. Practically identical to ones I check on my laptop.

Keep us updated. I hope it's only the stats code.

[dusky]

Just a thought, in some instances, using the same design, theme, CSS etc for two sites (having the same owner) which are serving the same niche with closely similar content may mistakenly trigger a duplicate content filter. I had that happen to sites I manage, though one was targeting the UK market and the other the North American Market, one .co.uk, the other .com. Had the two heavily "handicapped" and the UK one was almost de-indexed. I used the "handicap filter" as I call it, is when the site gains what would look in G*'s eyes as an unfair advantage, hence a minus whatever number filter to tip the balance. What may constitute an unfair advantage could be selling products under a white label / license or affiliate links, a clever white hat SEO that's just too good, outranking large corporate sites at their own game (similar products of what they are offering) etc among other examples.

Come to think of it, I have yet to start a thread devoted to the "handicap filter" which can have many guises. I know many threads speak of the -n penalties which are actually handicap filters, so one needs to look into them deeper.

[tedster]

Your idea of a "handicap filter" sounds a lot like Human Editorial Input [webmasterworld.com].