Search Engine Placement

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I have been using CSB - and before that, Trellix.  I am currently listed at the top of Google and Yahoo search engines for "church conflict" and related terms.

My question / concern is, if I switch to a different web program such as WYSIWYG, will that, can that, effect how my page is read by the various search engines and then change, lower my position?

Thanks.

Ken N.

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Hi, Well it takes a while for changes depending on when the robots crawl your site but yes it COULD affect your rankings. One trick I use is in a remake is to leave all of my old pages up a while and rename the new design pages so they have a different address. This works really well if all of your links to your homepage in the original file have been added as a html link and not a select page link. By doing this people still looking for the old pages find them and can eventually nav back to the index of the new site. The rankings on the old pages remain the same.

It depends on the site I guess if you would want to do this. I think for an informational site vs a commercial site it works the best. Those are what I have done this on before. A commercial site might not want customers finding dual and or conflicting content pages. Informational sites don't seem to be affected as much because the contents are not critical to a legally binding agreement such as making a purchase. I usually put a notice on the index that the site is new and that visitors might have found their way from an old page still published so they don't lose confidence or become confused with the site. Basically if a person enters through an old page other than the index all of the links continue to work as usual until they hit index. So some may visit and never even know there is an updated version unless you post on each page a notice that the person is visiting an older version of the site and to please navigate to the index page to visit the new site.

It works for me so I don't get a ton of Page Not Found hits after a change and it keeps the rankings up. I have left up old sites for as long as six months without it affecting anything on informational sites.

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I thought that using a particular web program should not make a difference and I agree with Wanda as time will tell if there is a difference. However, about a year ago, I converted a CSB web site to Frontpage using the same URL's and the Google page rank plummeted even though content, keywords, meta tags etc. were almost the same. On some pages, Frontpage added about 30% (roughly) more code. For small pages this is not a lot but for pages of say 200k up 30% makes a huge difference to size. So although content is king, design and the way programs generate code must affect ranking.

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Search engines look for changes, for modifications to the site and though the creation software shouldn't impact the overall site score, it can.   Some software makes it far more difficult for the search engine to move around.  Obfuscating and encrypting pages, bloated code (Frontpage) and poor construction can cause havoc with rankings.  CSB as old as it is, is still liked by the search engines.

Important for websites that people forget about when they update their site:
- consistency - if you replace a page, keep the same name
- redirects - if you have to replace or rename a page or split to a subdirectory, use a permanent REDIRECT to keep the links from going dead cutting off your website from other sites.
- change (new information)
- proper coding - scripts work, no hidden characters
- no dead links
- spider ability to walk through from page to page
- meta tags and key words should be reviewed and updated
- robots.txt file should be reviewed and updated.

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Excellent points. Thanks Samantha. There is just one I did not understand:

spider ability to walk through from page to page

Is there a way to determine if my pages are spider walkable?

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Ya... there are TONS of link checker sites and software.  Most have limits how many pages it will go in, etc.

But generally:
- you should have TEXT links at the bottom of the important pages, especially if you use flash or image links elsewhere.
- The links should open in the SAME WINDOW not new window.
- always give an out link even if it is not prominent.  If a search engine gets in a window and can not find the exit, it must back up.  They don't like that.  Easiest way to stop that?  Link HOME. 

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Oh! 'Spider ability to walk thru' is to do with link checking. This is the link checker I often use: h**p://www.rankquest.com/tools/Link-Checker.php?url=

It is part of the Google toolbar which makes it easy to use.

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YUP.  Search engine spiders must have the ability to walk from page to page to page to page unhindered.
If that spidy is wandering your website and gets stuck in the web, it is a mark against you.  Your links should lead that spider around your site without sending it into a page that traps it with no escape.

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The only thing I want to mention is that my method of not renaming the pages the same but different while you leave the old site up is conflicting with Sammy's advice.

What I did after publishing the new site design with all new page names was: In segments, republish pages of the new site design with the old page names as much as possible. For example I published all of the bio pages on one publish changing from the new to the old name so it replaced the old pages only in that section - leaving the rest of the new and old pages in tact. I waited a few weeks and then published all of the maps with the old name etc. and so on until after a while all of the old site design pages were replaced with the new site design pages. Occasionally I had a few "left over" old pages on the republish that no new page had been created to replace. I left those up until after all republishing was done with a large banner at the top stating it was left from an old version of the site to please click here to visit the new site pages. That then linked viewers to the index of what ever section the page had been in. I watched stats and saw it was working for me to transfer people to where they needed to be rather than lose them for having tried to visit a page that didn't exist or link to anything any more. I stripped those pages of anything but written content so spiders wouldn't try to crawl them any more.

I started from the less visited page groups and worked my way forward to the most visited pages over time. By doing this I never found much difference in the rankings. I think this was because cached pages still worked and web crawling never ceased to be deterred. It kept the whole thing from changing at once and caused less notation of change. I guess the spiders originally detected addition of content more than change so they kept doing their old job too.  Shoot, as if I know the inner workings of any given spider.  I just know the results were favorable and better than when I had previously made a completely drastic change from a site built on old software to a completely new site built on the new software. Honestly I saw dramatic differences even though content and meta tags still contained key words and in some cases content was merely copied. The codes were clean enough so it wasn't that.

I think this would work even if you rebuilt a site on the same old software but on a different file so it wasn't remembering past publishes to remove or update.


Anyway I think if your not going to try this method then I completely agree with Sammy's advice to rename the pages the same are in the old design as much as possible.

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conflicting with Sammy's advice

Wanda, don't see how we conflict.  You are taking page contact.htm and replacing with a new page contact.htm
That is what I advocate.

leaving the rest of the new and old pages in tact.

yup.  exactly.

I started from the less visited page groups and worked my way forward to the most visited pages over time.

Again, exactly right.

I think this was because cached pages still worked and web crawling never ceased to be deterred.

Yes.  That's the point.  You did not do things that broke the progress of the spider while trying to walk your site.

Sounds like we agree to me!!!

If you are leaving all your webpages in the same directories, you are dead on the same advice as mine.

If however, someone is taking a large single directory and splitting it into subdirectories, moving pages for organization, and/or CHANGING the file names (like changing id80.htm to contact.htm) you need to add one more step: set up permanent redirects so the incoming links looking for id80.htm will be able to find that contact.htm page.  Otherwise your incoming links will break, killing rankings.

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Thanks Wanda and Sami for clarifying. I also understood it to be different means but to the same end. My rankings plummeted because I reorganized everything into new directories and deleted all old pages and directories and did not have any redirects either. It took about two months for rankings to climb again. In future I not make the same mistakes.

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I have talked about the need for redirects with subdirectory splits and page renaming.
Even added that section to my subdirectory page a while ago.  Gotta scroll down....
I feel terrible if anyone has gotten a different impression.

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I must admit not having read this section and will do so in due course.

Thanks Sami.