33 replies to this topic

[Jill]

I have heard a few people theorize that redesigning a site completely can throw it back into the aging delay.

I have a few new client sites coming up that are currently doing well in the rankings, and the last thing I want to do is ruin any rankings they currently have.

Does anyone have any definitive proof if a redesign can kick in an aging delay? If so, do you know how much design change will kick it in?

[ttw]

Hi Jill: We have relaunched many sites -- complete with new designs - new optimized content, etc - in the past few years and have never seen one of these sites disappear in Google as a result.

[MakeMeTop]

The MMT site has changed totally!

All pages have been picked up (both new and redesigned) and rank fine even though the main theme of the site is completely different.

No "sandbox" effect as far as I can see.

[Jill]

Just as an aside, if a site has good serps, then it doesn't hurt ( in most cases) to leave a link to the old site for a period of time, especially if you are starting from scratch. This way at least, you have a degree of insulation and can gradually let go of the old in favour of the new via the standard methods of 301 etc.

Well, I would personally be scared of using a new domain at the moment. The redesigns I'm talking about are at least keeping the same old domain name at least!

[robwatts]

Well, I would personally be scared of using a new domain at the moment. The redesigns I'm talking about are at least keeping the same old domain name at least!

When I said site, I meant a link to the old files from the same domain, not from a new one.

Sorry for any confusion there

[Matt B]

From what I've seen, the re-designed sites have always done better than the original sites, and drastically. Have specific goals, comparison studies, etc. But when looking at $$, the results have been significantly impressive.

No aging delay from what I've seen the past year - I think it is the same as changing any page - if it is more relevent and easier for the user, it does well.



IMO, the "sandbox" for redesigned sites is total BS.

I think the main source of this so-called redesign "sandbox" is the result of sites getting new page names and extensions. If those change - it will all be out of whack until the SE's get the site straitened around in their index. Of course, if you forget an error page, that will cause users to drop your site as well.

Nothing replaces careful planning, foresight and contingency designs.

[Jill]

When I said site, I meant a link to the old files from the same domain, not from a new one.

Ahh...so you mean if you change the file names. Gotcha!

No aging delay from what I've seen the past year - I think it is the same as changing any page - if it is more relevent and easier for the user, it does well.

Thanks, Matt. That's helpful!

Will let everyone know what happens with our redesigns once it's all implemented. Could be a few months of course!

[SmellieNellie]

For what it is worth my experience so far has been - a site that we re-designed and put onto a new domain name in October of last year has been indexed but still does not feature in SERPS not even on the name of the company in Google. All of the tactics used are STRICTLY within the google guidelines - there is nothing untoward, no quick linking strategy nothing.

However, we have also re-designed sites and optimised them since October and none of these sites have suffered and have only had an increase in rankings.

My t'penny h'penny

[davidbrett]

We Redesigned a site in January - we changed some of the file names and we moved files out of an html-files directory to the root directory - the site has only started to return in Googles serps in the last month or so.

For other sites we made smaller changes and didn't change the structure and we saw no aging delay.

[Jill]

a site that we re-designed and put onto a new domain name

Yep, a new domain name will definitely be subject to the aging delay, that one I'm sure of.

We Redesigned a site in January - we changed some of the file names and we moved files out of an html-files directory to the root directory - the site has only started to return in Googles serps in the last month or so.

Now this is disconcerting. I wonder why this happened to you, but others have said it doesn't happen. That's exactly what I'm worried about!

[Randy]

I wonder if it had anything to do Google having to find the new pages and structure Jill.

David: Did you do any 301 redirecting from the old files to the new locations on that site? If not, that may help to give us a clue about the delay.

[Shane]

As I related last week, we completely rebuilt a site in July 2004. The design and content were 100% new, and the only URL's we kept were all 301'd to new URL's. The rest we just let 404. We launched the site on Friday and traffic from Google doubled by Monday.

The homepage of the site was a PR7, for what it's worth. I could see them giving popular, established sites the benefit of the doubt on a redesign since it's unlikely that those would as subject to being picked up and changed by people just looking for fast rankings (e.g. online casinos).

I wonder, too, if the general content of the site has anything to do with it. In other words, if you completely revamped a car site and it was still clearly a car site when you got through with it, would it not be subject to the aging delay like it would if you turned it into a job site (or something else completely different).

[Scottie]

Last fall I completely redesigned a site- changed the page extentions and everything. The site had been around a year. Within 3 weeks of the redesign, it was ranking at the top for most of the desired phrases- no delay.

[Jill]

Good, good! Those last examples are encouraging!

[davidbrett]

Hi Guys

I didn't set up 301 redirects - it was a mistake on my part - This could have been a factor in the delay

The site was also fairly new and has a page rank of 4.