New Website - Changing Content, Site Architecture, and Code all at Once

[aggiejulie12]

I read a while back that Google discouraged you from changing everything at once when you do a website redesign, but I can't find a record of that anywhere. I've found lots of articles on migrating websites, but it seems to me like those articles are more about the domain changing. Is there any reputable article or quote from Google that talks about redesigning a website, but not changing the domain name?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@aggiejulie12, not that I know of. But I can say that the best (and pretty commonsense) approach usually is to change as few things as possible at once. If traffic/visibility plummets or something else goes wrong, you're in a better position to troubleshoot and maybe to correct it.

Of course, I don't know any of the particulars of your situation, but you may want to change the code and architecture of your site first, and let it all sit for a while before shaking up the content too much.

 

[Rich Owings]

I agree. Don't roll out a ton of changes at once. Here's a quote...

Interviewer: People should just do the HTTPS on it’s own and then deal with any other changes.

Gary Illyes: Yes. Yes, yes, always. If you are doing any sort of site move. Don’t change everything at the same time. If you want to do a redesign of your site then redesign the site. After that, once the ranking fluctuations have gone away because if when you redesign your site it’s, I can almost guarantee that you will see ranking fluctuations. And that is working as intended. But, don’t combine redesign, with a URL structure change or type of moving to HTTPS or crap like that because you are going to shoot yourself in the foot, and with a cannon pretty much.

 

[aggiejulie12]

I agree. Don't roll out a ton of changes at once. Here's a quote...

Thanks so much Rich!! This is exactly what I was looking for!