Will code changes effect my rankings?

Hiya, this is probably a daft question, but I will ask it anyway...

Will code changes effect my rankings?

I'm looking if any of you have had experiences of redesigning / updating a site and the subsequent effects it had on your rankings?

Surely if content is the same, then ranking will remain the same? I am wanting to do a few updates, which will change the html. Content will be the same, but code will be different. Yet I do not want to jeopardise my search engine positions.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Hello lowrisk

For what has been my experience: two years ago I redesigned the site, switched from HTML4 to HTML5, CSS2 to CCS3. I had a temporary (one month or so) drop in raking on search engines.

May depend on many factors (elements positions, keywords denisty, "images-to-text" ratio, "html-to-text" ratio etc.). It seems that the search engines look at your site as if it were a new entity. Particularly, be careful (if you ever want to change completely the layout of your site) whit Google and its new "page layout algorithm". Remember: "content above the fold" ;)

Cheers

Dave

Cheers for your input on this Dave. I'm currently trying to weight up the pros and cons of updating. There are certainly a lot of pros, but still really worried about the ranking situation. I mean I am updating to make the code better, site speed better etc. All things that google is looking for. Yet I'm potentially going to have a temporary drop, which is manageable I guess.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dfiocch

Hello lowrisk

For what has been my experience: two years ago I redesigned the site, switched from HTML4 to HTML5, CSS2 to CCS3. I had a temporary (one month or so) drop in raking on search engines.

May depend on many factors (elements positions, keywords denisty, "images-to-text" ratio, "html-to-text" ratio etc.). It seems that the search engines look at your site as if it were a new entity. Particularly, be careful (if you ever want to change completely the layout of your site) whit Google and its new "page layout algorithm". Remember: "content above the fold" ;)

Cheers

Dave

---

IMO, More important than keeping your content is keeping your page URL's the same.
If you have to change URL's be sure to use 301's to redirect the old URL to the new one.

Also, if you want to avoid a "Re-calculation" period(drop in rankings), update in increments (if possible) and be sure to let google know of your code changes by using the googlebot fetch and submit function in google's webmaster tools.

@dfiocch Was the switch to html 5 beneficial long term? I had put a wordpress plugin for html 5 on my poker site and it lowered my serps. When you get a chance can you let us know about your experiance with html5 please. Thank You.

Code changes should not affect rankings, I have redesigned several of my sites and never experienced lossmof traffic. However you need to follow certain rules:

Do not change the structure of the site ie make directories disappear or change the names of folders etc, and if you do use 301's to redirect the pages but you can see temporary loss of traffic if not done properly due to duplication issues
Do not change the content significantly when doing the redesign. It is best to redesign with the content you already have and then change this naturally in time.

The code changes per se will not affect how Google views your site as it looks at the content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by edgarf76

@dfiocch Was the switch to html 5 beneficial long term? I had put a wordpress plugin for html 5 on my poker site and it lowered my serps. When you get a chance can you let us know about your experiance with html5 please. Thank You.

---

Hello edgarf76,

what do you mean when you talk about a "html5 plugin"?
HTML 5 is about semantic, not a single plugin written in HTML 5.

For Example, with HTML5 you can define better some elements on you site:

-instead of using the "classic" <div></div> to define, for example, a "right sidebar" you can use the HTML 5 tag <aside></aside>

or

-instead of using the "classic" <div></div> to define a navigation group links, you can use the HMTL 5 tag <nav></nav>

Etc...

There are a lot of new tags with the HTML 5 semantic such as <article> (to define articles), <section> (to define a section of a page), <mark> (to define marked or highlighted text) etc., etc...

HTML 5 is intended to clarify to search engine bots the structure of a given page.
And anyway, it still is not clear what benefits it can bring in terms of SEO.
And just think that Google only last year began to "read" the semantics of HTML 5.

We will see... :)

Cheers

Dave

Changing the design and/or code can most certainly impact rankings.

I like to roll with the "if it is not broke - don't fix it" approach. If I'm happy with my rankings and conversions, I'm not willing to update the look of my site.

I've not had my ranking change significantly when altering the layout of the site as long as the content has remained the same. The bigger the changes the more likely you are to have it impact your ranking.

I'd also echo what others have been saying about the 301 redirects. Avoid changing the content url if it can be avoided.

If you want to be really cautious, try breaking down your update into smaller parts and rolling out incremental changes over time. This will give you a chance to see the effects of your work and make it easier to revert any changes if necessary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by -Shay-

Changing the design and/or code can most certainly impact rankings.

I like to roll with the "if it is not broke - don't fix it" approach. If I'm happy with my rankings and conversions, I'm not willing to update the look of my site.

---

I think you're right, it's a sterling piece of advice. Why mess with something that is working. Cheers for this, I couldn't see the wood for the trees. Two very good statements to take heed from: "Keep it Simple Stupid" and "If it isn't broke, don't fix it"!

Thanks for everyone's advice on this. Much appreciated. Think I'm going to play it safe and not change it. :-)

In the case of casino city, while we have not done any major graphic redesigns lately, we do make changes all of the time. It is not uncommon for us to make changes that alter the urls of thousands of pages. But, when we do that we are very careful to make sure 301 redirects are in place for all of the pages that have moved, and that our sites are fully updated so that we don't ourselves have links that will be 301 redirected within our own sites. I have never noticed short-term traffic changes that I would attribute to any of those sorts of activities on our part, except once for a period of time when we had not gotten all of the 301 redirects right.

@dfiocch this is the plugin that i am talking about - http://simplemediacode.org/forums/fo...theme-support/

I had it installed and it messed up my rankings.

Once again thanks for all your advice on this. I've done A LOT of research but still haven't got a definitive answer. There are too many variables that google takes into account to predict the results. I have decided to test this out on another website (non affiliate), I will track the rankings and report back with my findings.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lowrisk

Once again thanks for all your advice on this. I've done A LOT of research but still haven't got a definitive answer. There are too many variables that google takes into account to predict the results. I have decided to test this out on another website (non affiliate), I will track the rankings and report back with my findings.

---

Smartest move, in my opinion.

When we push out changes, I mentioned earlier my "don't fix what isn't broke" policy. We launch new sites regularly and when we do launch a new site, I simply update the theme/code to fit the bill. Then, those adjustments stay in the code going forward (are included in future sites by default).

Sure it has an effect on your EPSERPS and ranking because Google and other SE bots crawl the pages via the codes... Not as you see the page.... Try to keep the code clean... And remove the unnecessary codes...