Bought a good ranking domain and now what?

[stopandgo]

Hi all,
I just have purchased an abandoned web site which has one of the top search rankings. For its one word, 6th in Google, 2nd in Yahoo. I see alot of traffic coming from search engines. But here is my dilema. I want to change the look of the whole web site as well as adding more contents while keeping the current contents. But if these changes result in lowering in rankings I would certaitly don't bother changing it except putting up the Adsense. Any suggestions? Thanks much.

[ciml]

I want to change the look of the whole web site as well as adding more contents while keeping the current contents.

If the structure of the Web site remains similar, then changing the look should be fine. Adding more content should serve only to increase the site's search engine presence.

The problems normally come when people take an old Web site with original content and replace it all with affiliate links or pay per click listings.

[clenard]

I agree. Change the design and nothing else and you should be perfectly fine :-)