Forum Moderators: phranque
If you plan to change table layout or move from tables to CSS (or vice versa) you should probably read up on the impact that may have.
I've found in the past that a re-design can help ranking a great deal as you tend to add more stuff to the site (contextual linking, content, etc).
As long as you don't fundementally screw up your site's ability to be indexed then I wouldn't worry too much.
If in doubt, you could redesign a few minor pages and check out the impact on their ranking before you go and do the lot.
MG
we do not intend to change the content of the site and not the manner in which it has been constructed just the viewable appearance will this adversely affect what has been created and incoming traffic?
Very unlikely. If the appearance is currently "quick and dirty" then tidying it up will probably increase traffic.
Matt
All indications to date are the end users like the changes. Likewise, though it is perhaps too early to fully know, none of the SE's seem to have hiccuped any. Well, there is one exception.
In the redo, some older info pages that were outdated were delinked and dropped, so now there's a barrage of 404's in the logs as Slurp agains demos its dismay and shock that anyone would take a page away from that robot. Slurp just doesn't seem to have clue one what to do with a 404, never has in my opinion, maybe never will, I don't know.
Page names remained the same except as noted above, some were simply deleted.
New pages were added and these are showing up satisfactorily.
Link text remained the same as the old design about 99%+ of the time.
Nav menu got moved to the far right (If it's good enough for Brett, it's good enough for me.