Drop in rankings following a redesign

[caravan]

I wonder if you could lend me your ears and offer some advice on a problem I have. I've recently been working on the redesign and seo for a new client of ours - pakawaste.co.uk. We've deployed a new look website but their rankings for a key search term has dropped and I'm at a loss as to why this might be. Let me explain.

The old website was dated and required a facelift and improved functionality in line with their new look branding. It used a code heavy table structure as a layout tool, on the majority of pages the page titles were the same (Waste Compactors by Pakawaste Ltd) and on the product pages there were no page titles at all. Also the only meta tags used were the description tag which was repeated across all pages. The site also had a page rank of 3. One of Pakawaste's main search terms is 'Balers', for this term they were number one and had been for a very long time. This term alone brought them a great deal of business.

We redesigned the website using CSS as a layout tool, we identified the keyword phrases we wished to target and used these in the page titles, keyword and description meta tags, we have interlinked pages using keyword text links, used keywords as filenames where possible, added a html sitemap, xml sitemap, used exactly the same content as before for the product sections and we're in the process of building and adding new content for different subject matters.

On launching the new website I put 301 redirects in place for all pages where the filenames had changed. Google indexed and updated it's listings quickly but the term 'Balers' dropped of the radar completely. I made a couple of tweaks to page titles and meta tags and added some extra content about balers and the term re-appeared on page 2-3 of googles results. This is where it has stayed for a couple of months now.

The client is continuing to ask what has happened but I'm at a loss as to what to suggest. Theoretically the old site broke all the rules of basic optimisation. I feel I've done everything I can think of that's by the book but can't understand why the site has seen a drop in positioning for the term balers.

Today I've noticed that any page rank from the old pages has not been transferred to the new pages via the 301 redirects. The new pages have a PR of 0 while pages that retained their original filenames have a PR of 3. Am I correct in thinking that when you use a 301 it transfers any PR to the new page? Could this be the reason why the ranking has dropped? I used the following code for the 301's

Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.pakawaste.co.uk/new_page_name_goes_here.asp"

If this is the reason why the ranking has dropped, is it likely that the ranking will improve in time once Google updates it's PR? Does anyone have any tips or advice for anything else I should have done or could be doing to improve things?

Andy

[wige]

301 redirects do transfer at least some of the incoming pagerank. It is not known if all of the pagerank is transferred. For now, ignore toolbar pagerank... Google has not updated that database in a long time, and it's irrelevant anyway.

In the weeks after a major redesign, you might run into duplicate content filters if you use the same content on pages with new filenames - Google remembers this content being on another page, so it filters out the new content until it drops the old page from the index. Depending on your crawl rate, this could take up to a month. Google does have other protocols in place, such as a suspected jump in crawling activity after it detects the site has been redesigned, especially a much faster discovery scan to find the urls and try to reindex your content. However, this can vary depending on your inbound links.

Because you indicate it has been a few months, the first thing I would check is your inbound links. Google is not going to expect all your IBLs to be updated a month after you redesign your site, but Google does look for signs of life, such as your IBLs slowly switching to the new addresses. Google looks at your inbound link profile (the types of links you have, the types of sites linking to you, etc) and too many inbound links going to redirects could throw this off. Pagerank is based on the idea of finding authoritative sites - how authoritative could the site be if the links are out of date (indicated by redirects that go a long time without being updated).

Another thing I would check is Webmaster tools. See if Google is getting any crawl errors, and check the link report to see if there are sites you can contact to get proper IBLs. Also, try testing your redirect pages with a test utility to make sure they are actually giving a 301 redirect message.

[chowell]

Your new pages appear to be dynamic and use a fairly long query string (more than 2 variables). I'm assuming the old site didn't use this same configuration.

I'd suggest using some kind of URL rewrite to make the URLs static and/or cut down on the number of variables in the URLs.

Another thing I noticed is that your individual "baler" pages don't even use that keyword on them. There is sparce usage of "baling" and "bale", but little to no references of "baler".

[Peter (IMC)]

Not to be critical in a negative way, but I think you made it worse than it was before. In all pages I find this:

<div id="top"><h1><span class="display-none">PakaWaste Waste Handling Systems</span></h1></div>

What is worse even is that they´re invisible to the visitors.

h1 tags, like all html tags for that matter, are page specific and never site specific. For example this page: Shredders > Industrial Shredders > PWAZ 1300 - 1600XL M

The title says the page is about:

"Shredders > Industrial Shredders > PWAZ 1300 - 1600XL M"

The h1 says the page is about:

"PakaWaste Waste Handling Systems"

Then there is an h3 that agrees again with the title but not at all with the h1:

"PWAZ 1300 - 1600XL M"

Lets look at the homepage.

The title talks about:

"Waste Handling Equipment"

But the h1 (here too hidden by the way) talks about:

"Waste Handling Systems"

There´s no focus at all in the pages of the site. SEO is not just about the html code. It's about being clear to the site visitors. The pages are really confusing, especially to search engines that take those hidden h1 into account.

By the way, nothing wrong with the design and all, good job on the tableless design. But the real problem is in the non technical side of SEO (most people don't get this part by the way so nothing to be ashamed of). Just try to figure out how to bring focus to pages. Don't optimize the site, just optimize each page on its own and you'll get much better results. After that you can learn about site related SEO factors.

[incrediblehelp]

You can also try contacting the websites that link to yours and get the links updated in that manner.

[bj]

This Directory of SEO friendly directories does the weeding out for you. Not all Directories give the right kind of link for free. Many use nofollow for free listings.

Info Vilesilencer: The Original SEO Friendly Free Directory List

[RegDCP]

>>One of Pakawaste's main search terms is 'Balers', for this term they were number one and had been for a very long time. This term alone brought them a great deal of business.

There is one reference to balers on the main page.
I would suspect that this is one reason for the drop.

Why would you put balers down near the bottom of the product listing when it had been a good seller? The kw bailer is also down near the bottom of the kw meta gag also.

Reg

[seo4china]

Need to work more on your keyword density, and clean out a little bit the code. New links won't hurt too

[optimalwebsite]

I'm not sure about the new design in terms of it's functionality... does anyone else think this might be improved? Just a thought... but to me the buttons dont really make me feel like i want to click on them.

[activeco]

Redesign from tables to CSS could produce strange results in terms of SE rankings.
Check this thread too.

[monfis]

Write decent (page content related) meta title, description and keywords tags, individually for every page of your site and the biggest obstacle for your drop in rankings will be eliminated.

I am frequently changing designs for my clients and never suffer significiant drops in the SERPs.

Of course there are some ups and downs but usually those changes can be fixed easy with some on page/site adjustments.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by activeco

Redesign from tables to CSS could produce strange results in terms of SE rankings.
Check this thread too.

Changing to CSS does not impact your rankings negatively.

If with the change also URL's and Link Text were changed, then you could see some unexpected things. But URL's and Link Text have nothing to do with CSS.

[InkodeR]

I just noticed that when you go to the non-www version of your site, it throws back nothing. Are you 100% that your redirect is working correctly? Also when on a page and you click back to home, instead of being taken to the main url you are taken to:

/index.asp

So you have duplicate content right there. You will want to redirect to that and in future (or now) link to "/" instead.

[InkodeR]

Oh and something else I noticed. The description that has been used in a lot of your directory listings & link building is identical to the content on your homepage - more duplicate penalties??

[sacada2]

Originally Posted by InkodeR

Oh and something else I noticed. The description that has been used in a lot of your directory listings & link building is identical to the content on your homepage - more duplicate penalties??

Could you really be penalize by doing this?

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by sacada2

Could you really be penalize by doing this?

unlikely. Seems to me that having the same description in many directory listings is a pretty natural thing.

[wige]

Google is suspected of comparing link text and nearby text to determine unnatural links. I think it could work against you if the same text is used in each directory listing as this tells Google that these are not naturally occurring links. Especially if these links comprise a large percentage of your link profile.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by seo4china

Need to work more on your keyword density, and clean out a little bit the code. New links won't hurt too

Keyword Density? Another myth fan? Didn't you ever hear about Google PhraseRank algo?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Changing to CSS does not impact your rankings negatively.

If with the change also URL's and Link Text were changed, then you could see some unexpected things. But URL's and Link Text have nothing to do with CSS.

I fully agree!!!!

I also wanted to ask here, if the theme of the site has something to do with web design. Just wondering because at the bottom of the page is an OBL to a web design company. Was that also on the old site?

Also the homepage seems to have too less content.
See here what the engines see: Waste Handling Equipment, Balers, Compactors, Shredders - Pakawaste, Lancashire, UK

Are you happy with the page structure? Me not. But I guess your designer should know why.

[coolguy27]

Redesigning sites must be done carefully links must be monitored in order not to affect your ranking...