What effect will a redesign have on Google positioning?

[bernardg]

One of my web sites is in need of a redesign. It gets to Page 2 on Google for the required search term but does not really produce good results. I have had it for a long time and it has just evolved from a hand-coded HTML site to its present form which at least uses CSS.

My wish is to switch to a Wordpress site. I know Google generally thinks well of Wordpress and I think I can make it more effctive in lead generation. All of the pages will have new names though and most existing ones will disappear.

I suppose I could have a 301 redirect for each page that will go away but that sounds like a cumbersome solution.

Any thoughts on what Google is likely to make of the same established URL but with new content on a new platform?

Bernard Gibbons
Walnut Creek, CA

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

design wont affect it as long as everything else stays the same

[businesscoachza]

As long as the domain URL remains the same you'll be OK.

A word of caution though: Back up everything including data bases before you do anything.
If you're removing or changing page names, don't forget any deep backlinks you may have pointing at these will no longer work. If you had any rank on these pages that'll obviously be affected.
Suggestion for a great theme: Estate by Woothemes.
Good luck.

[Maui]

I suppose I could have a 301 redirect for each page that will go away but that sounds like a cumbersome solution.

If you have already established Page Authority/Page Rank on a page (depending on what metric you want to use, but you get the point), including deep backlinks, then it'd be foolish NOT to 301 it. Obviously it may not be doable for all your pages, depending on how many are indexed, but for your money pages it'd be worth your time to set 301's to the new appropriate pages.

[realatrends]

I just switched to Wordpress less then a month ago (Love it!) and it seems my rankings have stayed the same. I think you're fine, some of my old pages show up in search results so I tried to make my Error 404 page look decent enough to stay on my site. None of my pages have a page rank since I recently made the switch, but I'm seeing some new pages show up in the results.

[bernardg]

Did you have Page Rank on some of your original pages? I was advised to set up 301 redirects in the .htaccess file for any pages that warranted it, as well as having a useful 404 Page.

[realatrends]

Yes, All of my pages had a page rank but none of them really had many incoming links to them. I was hoping when Google does a page rank update it would apply page rank to the new pages. I will look into .htaccess, but last time I checked google did not support it. Can you do this through Google Webmaster Tools?

[bernardg]

I hadn't heard that Google would not use the .htaccess file. Must check on that!

So far as I know, the simplest way to edit an .htaccess file is in a text editor then ftp to the site.

[bernardg]

Looks like Google does support .htaccess. See http://support.google.com/webmasters...n&answer=93633

[realatrends]

Isn't that for moving domain? I have the same domain, different pages. I think I might just wait for google to update their PR. My site hasnt really been effected.