Site re-design affect SERPS?

Will G have issues with this?

[Phil_AM]

Hey all,

I'm re-designing my website but keeping all the file names the same. Just replacing graphic positioning, re-writing content and adding additional links from the index page.

I've heard some nightmare stories about G and changing things on the site. Right now I am a PR 7 and top 5 on over 20 key terms. (problem is conversion, that's why im re-designing). Any helpful do's and don'ts for this?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I have did this and got away with it. In fact I actually got a better position after the redesign. If you retain the file names and the page content is largely similar to that that you have at present (wrt keyword density and anchor text) you should have no problem.

[Robber]

We had a site holding PR5/6 for the last 4 years (ish) with good positions - loads of fist page and number ones.

Did a re-design that went live first week in september. Same file name, same page structures except a few words here and there (used mainly external CSS to change design), same linking structure.

For the first time in 4 years the site got dropped - coincides with 23rd september changes. Interestingly, we added a few new pages. The new pages are ranking fine, but the old ones have dropped from first page to tenth page, roughly.

Difficult to say what the problem is though it might be the re-design, it might be that we were due to get wiped out on 23rd september anyway. Strange that new pages rank but not old ones though.

Cheers