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Yes. Depends on numerous factors, including how you do it, and whether you are changing domains, or just URI's.
Worst case, on a younger, non-authoritative site with a domain change, over a year of -67% or worse traffic. Best case, which includes not changing domains, barely a ripple.
Are you changing domains? Or, just URI structure?
company-widgets.com -> companywidgets.com
The hyphenated version is 8 or 9 years old. The non-hyphenated is about 5 years old and had been redirected to the older domain.
The site in question was archaic in layout and architecture, and was in sore need of a major update. We switched over to a CMS and did a complete redesign from ground zero, although we maintained 95% or more of the content in its original form (but not necessarily format).
The switch was in planning for almost a year. All old pages were mapped to the new pages. The site was moved to a dedicated IP (had previously been on shared server).
The site was top 10 across literally hundred of niche related search terms. At one time was as high as #2 for widget and widgets, and had been #1 for 'widgets for sale' and a multitude of geographic terms ('wigets state', 'widget maker(s) state', 'widgets for sale state', etc.), but it had slipped to page two for most of the main one and two word terms.
All this in G. The site simply would not rank in Y, had very mixed results in Ask (did pretty good in Gigablast:)) and was all over the board in MSN.
We took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
Your mileage may very, given the April shakeup in Google. That said, this is a very brief synopsis of the flow of events.
2007 statistics showed a high of 16k + visits and 43k+ page views in in May. The site was found by some 4.3k different search terms.
Jan 15-31 - Predictable decline in traffic from 6k visits and 16k page views in the first half of the month to 5k visits in the 2nd half of the month. Page views increased to 24k in the 2nd half of the month, largely attributible to the improved architecture and navigation.
Feb. 2008 - Visits down to 5.6k and page views 22k. Roughly a 50% decline. Interstingly, much of the traffic was shifting to foriegn visitors (uk, ie, au, nz, etc.)
March, 2008 - 6k visits, 21k page views. Long term phrases were the only thing supporting traffic
April, 2008 - 9k visits, 21k page views. Getting depressed and second guessing the decision to make the changes. Still the long term phrases supporting the traffic.
May, 2008 - May 12th saw a 50% increase in traffic. Examining the SERPs revealed sudden appearance of the site in short term phrases. Sitting at 20 for 'widget', 21 for 'widgets' 10 for 'widgets for sale', etc. Traffic to date in May 6k visits and 17k page views.
Results have been holding pretty steady for almost a week, so very optimistic. Webmaster tools reflects G's trasferring all old links to the new domain.
We are still 100-200 visits a day behind last years average, and about 200 daily page views. However, the average page view per visit has increased from <2.5 to >3, again attributible to improved site design and navigation.
Would we switch domains again? Probably not :( We are seeing about 100 more Yahoo referrals a month than we did before, and the other SE's have remained absmally low.
But, it has been an interesting experience, and quite entertaining to watch G adapt to the changes. The algo almost shows some real intelligence in its ability to adapt and figure things out.
If your, or anyone else's livelihood depends on current traffic, the switch will cause you a difficult quarter at the minimum - and that with a carefully thought out roll out. Anything less and you might be hurting for a long, long time.
Worst case, on a younger, non-authoritative site with a domain change, over a year of -67% or worse traffic. Best case, which includes not changing domains, barely a ripple.
Are you changing domains? Or, just URI structure?"
Caveman,
Let's say for arguements sake, the URl is brand new, no authority WSE with no redirects.
You never know for sure, but with a new domain, I would plan on a minimum of 50%-67% volume decline, for a minimum of 3-6 months, knowing it could be worse, and hoping it will be better.
You would have been better off to change the domain first, then re-organise internal URLs much later, also, one section at a time, rather than all-at-once.
However, all that for the addition or removal of a hyphen seems too much to me.
