15 years old portal

Questions about SEO / Metrica

[purehtc]

I've acquired an old regional portal.
It's 15 years old.

It got frames, animated gifs, old html tags, it's the 90s here.
It was and still is ranking pretty well in Google for a wide range of keywords.

For the record, I think I have a good handle on SEO basics and some.

I've been updating the website (removing frames, old html tags) and cleaning up the content (without removing any content).

I'm keeping the old url structure. Using 301s correctly if needed.
Correcting broken links, etc.

I also switched the hosting flawlessly (no downtime).
It's a clean host.

Before I made any changes, I let it run a little with Google Analytics / Webmaster Tools.

I've added one GoogleAds.

Since I've made changes, Webmaster Tools reports a 30% decrease in search impressions.

Is it normal because of the changes even if nothing drastic happened ? Am I doing something wrong ?

I'm almost feeling sorry for not simply spamming the dying website with ads... but I'm sincere about giving it a 2nd life.

Thanks for any cues (especially someone who did that before).

[Lexur]

Did ytou redirect each page of the frame or just the frame itself?
Maybe the search results were pointing to each windows of the frame.

[httpwebwitch]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

How long ago did you publish the revisions? Is this a short-term dip (common while pages get re-indexed, even with proper 301's), or a persistent drop?

[purehtc]

I'm making modifications for the past 2 months. Most were done in the last 3 weeks. So it is short-term. I did redirect all the frames correctly to the new page.

I think I'm asking a lot. There's too much variables in play.
Content was a little siloed into small sites, now I'm bringing back all the menus so I could be diluting the PR.

I've 301'ed the www.domain.com to domain.com so I know I'm loosing a little here.

GA stats are still looking better than the webmaster data so I'm sitting on it.

I have lots of opportunities to add fresh content before the end of summer so it should help reinvigorate everything.

I had a generic keyword competing just below Wikipedia in my local space. Now it's completely gone. I'm sad for this one link.

Thanks for the answer.

[httpwebwitch]

well it sounds like you know your SEO, you're doing things right, and you know where your sacrifices are. Go aggressively after all the success factors - tons of backlinks, social media mentions, repeat visitors, sticky interaction, trustworthiness, etc etc.

Are you monetizing the site in any way other than the one AdSense spot you mentioned?

[purehtc]

It's a treasure trove of backlinks (city websites, local gov's website). It's been there before the state websites came online. :)

Thanks for the quick list. While I still have no clue how much the social mentions are worth from a Google perspective, I'm definitely building a community on Facebook to bring a younger audience.

Repeat may be a good SEO signal but how much is it worth to your banner CTR ? Repeat visitors become blind to the ads. I value organic traffic and a high % of new visitor as long as the bounce rate is low.
(this is still an opinion being fact-checked at each opportunity.)

I'm going to sell banner ads to local small businesses in a specific region. GoogleAds are there as the last option. That's the classic.

As for really making money, this domain is a part of a bigger game of chess. I'm good at chess.

Thanks for your time.