Relaunching an existing site

Will we get banised into the Google Desert?

[gibbon]

We are just about to relaunch one of our sites

It is:
1. 3 years old
2. PR4 (dmoz, yahoo and a few authority links)
3. 1,500 pages indexed in G
4. Fairly good rankings for its money phrases – esp deep content pages

We have identified the site as having great potential. It is just unloved at present.

To this end we are about to relaunch on a new platform with a new technology, new design. Very pretty.

Much of the content will stay the same … however:

1. the new navigation structure will double the amount of pages (as there is too much content on individual pages at present we are splitting it)
2. all the existing urls will be removed, replaced with new dynamic urls

I havent launched, or even relaunched a site in 3 years up until 3 months ago – as we have been too busy refining current ones. However my experience of the last 2 sites we launched, which are trapped in the desert / deep freeze good and proper, has set off warning bells.

How do we approach the relaunch of this site. We cant afford to trip any warning signals, but on the other hand we have to relaunch, the new site will be far more effective and convert visitors to buyers far more effectively?

What is the best approach?

1.Slow gradual roll out?
2.Immediate “big bang” launch

We prefer the 2nd option for other marketing reasons, we are planning a press launch, offline ads etc - we expect the site to be a market leader. But this would be put on ice if we went for a slow relaunch.

Really scratching my head on this one. Put loads of effort into the last 2 sites launched (all in completely different sectors too), don’t want another one to suffer same fate.

Really grateful for any experience / advice shared. Read so many threads on this sandbox thingy, but there seems to be little consensus on this particular problem.

[prairie]

My 2c: You have to bank on losing most of your Google traffic in the short term, because there's no way of knowing you won't.

If you kept the file names and stucture the same, you could be ok though.

[randle]

Yes, # 2 will be felt for sure. I always look at it in terms of whats the total % of new files names within the overall site?

Looks like that could be everything but the home page, basically a brand new site, all pages will start out with PR 0.

[Powdork]

Where do most of your inbound links point? That may be the key. If the sandbox thingy is about the aging of inbound links and your inbounds all point to your homepage then I would think you would be ok. Generally most people that believe the inbound link aging theory agree that it does not affect internal links.
If the sandbox is a capacity problem you may be in trouble for the long term.

In the very short term (up to three months) you should expect to lose traffic from G regardless (except for your homepage). If your inbound links are mostly pointing to interior pages you should expect to lose traffic from G for up to a year regardless.

I'm hoping you will go for the big bang and let us know what happens.
Good Luck

ps- Don't you kind of feel like G is holding you hostage here?

[gibbon]

>>Where do most of your inbound links point?

to the home page, barely any deep ones.

& most of them are rather mature now & one way - havent really gone after recip links for this site

>>ps- Don't you kind of feel like G is holding you hostage here?

in a way yes, but then again, it is the 'not knowing' that is the issue, not what G will actually do. After all they may love the new site & structure. This is the game we are in, 4 years of this has taught me it is about managing risk and staying below the radar.

We will be launching it before Xmas, so will keep everyone updated

Wish us luck :)