Query on site changeover to a CMS

[Gregse]

Hi Guys, it's been a long time since I posted.
We are looking at a long overdue site upgrade from a hand coded version to possibly a CMS for ease of mainenance.
The site is mainly about "presence" and is not a "store front" to directly sell/market.
However, it ranks very well for its search term/s and sits on top google position. I notice that we take out top position for almost all likely search terms in our niche and even a few odd ones.
OK its not large but we are there.

Basically as I understand it, any CMS will have totally new page urls and we will have to carefully go through tags etc. Im pretty scared of what will happen if/when we redesign.

I would appreciate any feedback on whether a CMS is the way to go - or simply work our way through the current site replacing bad code and design. Its heavily table driven ATM, and while I can ditch that (mostly over time) - I need to decide on CMS or code workover.

The site is also a Dot.SE (Swedish/Eng) site, we have the Dot Com as well and can fire that up, but frankly it may not be worth it other than simply to keep a redirect from the COM to the SE (thats where we market).

Any thoughts on this would be great
Keep well all.

[Gregse]

Hi Guys,
Sorry - this is a very long answer to my own question to any thats interested. Well, I've take the decision to go with a code workover rather than migration to a CMS. I have nothing against CMS's, I use em in other sites with success and saving on hair pulling, love em to bits etc.

The reason for the question was SERP/SEO related. Our site ranks top for our niche and I want it to remain so (allowance for Google blips given). My concern was - in migrating to a CMS, it will make new Tags/URLs for every page - unless I go change each one (urgh) - or wait for Google to reindex. My experience in "pretty URLs" is variable & sometimes host related). I was and still am, pretty unsure of what would happen on such a migration.

So I spent the weekend, it was thundery here in Nice(France) with a beer and the the laptop redoing a main template. What I found was that a redesign is possible, retaining URLs, refining code & page structure, better look and a consistent feel is do-able while we get to improve some SEO and well as look. I even found some new page/info ideas

I also found that by using my experience of CMS structure - I can create consistent content block areas that I will "Feed" and also use "includes" to files that I Have created with a WYSI, or my articles etc. I love the idea of my feed blocks, also I can simplify my page writing/maintenance after-then all with a WYSI, save & include em.

I would still love to hear from a kindly SEO guy on their take on this issue. Like I said - its about retaining position (not PR).
And - any hints are welcome and comments on SEO of content includes.

Keep well and happy.

[incrediblehelp]

So the bottom line is your changing URLs during this redesign right? Then just make sure you 301 redirect the old ones to the new ones.

[jesussaddle]

That answer brings up a related question. Sorry, I'm a complete newbie. I had gotten the idea that re-directs were heavily penalized by Google, in the same vein as "doorway pages", affecting the rank of both the source and destination page. Not true? Can I assume they're not penalized at all?

[incrediblehelp]

Nope not at all. In fact they like them as they can figure out where your content has moved to. It makes their life easier.

[Andy SEO]

Hi,
I can only speak from my own experience on this. Whilst a 301 redirect is fine from resolving the change of URL issue I have found that Google in particular is very sensitive to other site design changes.

I have done a site wide cosmetic makeover on several sites over the years, one quite recently and whilst the site content was not changed the templates used to create the site pages were redesigned.

The result of this site wide makeover was an almost immediate drop in ranking for the keyword phrases that the site use to rank well for.

My explanation for this, since it happened on several sites is that the site makeover even if it was only the template design was flagged by Google.

It caused Google to do a complete reassessment of ranking for the entire site. Whilst the site was back in the melting pot the sites ranking disappeared for several months and in some cases did not reappear.

My advice if you are changing the site templates is do it slowly and in stages and keep an eye on the sites rankings. If you trigger Google to come do a site wide reassessment you could find your rankings do drop.

Andy
Search Engine Optimization Specalist - Become Your Own

[Gregse]

Hi Andy,
Thanks for the feedback - this is the response I was after. I was/am pretty wary of a total change to a CMS due to SERPS and was aware of the possible affects of even a template change. I will be updating the template site-wide, but am happy to take it in stages. I will be updating portions and add new pages on a slow roll out.
I also realised that a change to a template would affect the google cache page - so that while the url didnt change - the content and structure will as far as it goes so it would "reindex" that page. Hmm - the reassement of the site following major changes I had not considered - thanks for the heads up.
Appreciate your thoughts
Regards

[simonlogan]

Using a 301 redirect will help you retain the SERPs for the pages you already have and be a good bridge from your old to your new content.

Don't be overly afraid of CMS's though as many now have excellent SEO integration, such as Wordpress and Joomla, though with some you have to do extra bits of work here and there - but it's certainly not a no-go.

For Andy SEO, i guess it would depend partly on the build nature of your redesigned site as to how and if it would affect your rankings. Certainly if you had a multi-level tables based layout this would seriously drop your ranking compared to a clean CSS based one.

[Gregse]

Hi Simon,
Do you mean that even if I major overhaul a page (not in a CMS) where it uses the same url - I should still do a 301? Ive never heard of that - or do I misunderstand you.

Im not afraid of CMS's - I use 3 now (WPress, CMSMS and another) - I am really comfortable in customising them and writing my own UDTs and chopping them etc, thats not my issue.
This site as I said is top of our niche - a big ask in any case. Even with 301's - i want to be gentle about changes so as not to drop us off the planet - double guessing what google will think of a template to cms makeover is anybodies guess - including mine.
My guess was that if i go CMS and do 301's - we will still drop out cos of the reaction by the BigG bots - am I wrong? Maybe we come back - but after how long. Ok - Im paranoid - but ....
Regards