Gary Illyes from the Google Search Relations group posted one other PSA on LinkedIn. This time he stated, “while you redesign a web site, its rankings in search engines like google and yahoo could go nuts.”

Sure, that is in all probability tremendous apparent to most of you studying this web site however Gary dives a bit deeper.

He stated, “Amongst different issues, search engines like google and yahoo use the HTML of your pages to make sense of the content material. If for instance you break up paragraphs, take away H tags in favor of CSS styling, or add breaking tags (very true for CJK languages), you modify the HTML parsers’ output, which in flip could change the location’s rankings.”

Briefly, when redesigning, positive – go forward – make the location fairly. However altering the core HTML may end up in rating adjustments.

Gary recommends, “attempt to use semantically related HTML while you redesign the location and keep away from including tags the place you do not really need them.”

So in the event you can change the design however on the identical time hold issues within the HTML trying related, that’s your finest guess. Change lots with out altering lots – if that is smart.

Discussion board dialogue at LinkedIn.