#1 in google ... but I need a major redesign of my site

[microtekblue]

If you completely change your site as you are planning to do, then you WILL get de-indexed.

But you can use 301s to redirect certain urls, but if you have too many products that can get difficult and not really necessary, as once you resubmit ur sitemap and your urls have proper 301's (atleast your homepage) it will take time but you can expect to get re-indexed.

Home page redirect is important as well as keeping the same content on meta info on the new pages.

With such a drastic content change you are definitely looking at some trouble from SE's if not done properly.

[ozzie_jim]

Thank you all for your feedback. The message I'm getting is that if I go with the new layout which is totally different and minimalist I'm stuffed. I'll end up in position 31.

I'll ditch the graphic design work and start again.

[cbosleeds]

I think that's right - the minimalist approach is going to be much weaker than the content rich website that you have at present. Maybe give the graphics on your OScommerce site an overhaul instead - that way the change is better risk managed. As mentioned above, the loss of content, change of content, new domain name, change of webpage names, the reduction in internal linking etc all have the potential to work against you. There are fixes and ways of accommodating most things, but its a lot of extra work. If you do go with the new site, I'd transfer the domain name across, keep the content and the same webpages - the navigation would be different so as soon as you're live you would need to submit an xml sitemap to Google webmaster tools.

[weegillis]

Is there something I can do to placate google?

Offer up a valid site map. End of story.

I completely replaced every url in a site and it was completely indexed for the new site within hours just because of the site map. You don't have to placate them, just keep them in the loop.

It should be mentioned that server redirects were a big help.

Notwithstanding, the search engine had indexed and was delivering links to content in the new site within a matter of days in place of outdated urls. This to me was impressive. What's more, they are no longer delivering results that include old pages. Is that smart, or what? My server redirects are no longer needed, but for old bookmarks.

It let's me keep editing,
so I will...

Old bookmarks.

This speaks of the greater issue, which is your goodwill. If nothing else, you will certainly want your existing clientele to make the jump to your new domain. One would hope you will retain the old domain long enough to see them through the transition. You might want to use the good advice found here (wpw) to create seamless redirects to the new domain.

[weslinda]

I'm a little concerned by some of the advice here, as no one is asking any questions on the issues you perceive as happening. While I'm not an OSCommerce fan, I am aware that it can be templated to fit your needs.

I'd like to here where the site isn't serving your customers? What are the issues / concerns you have with the current site? Are the plugins / modifications that can be made to the current site to bring a better customer service experience.

Too many folks take the approach of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, when all that you need to do is simply enhance the work you've already done. The key question to me is, what is spurring the change? Why do you feel the need to change? Where are your sales being hurt by your current environment? What your major customer complaints? Can you address this in OSCommerce with some updates and upgrades?

Also, why the domain name change? Seems like you are going from a really solid domain, to an okay domain. Whats the thought in the change?

A question for you, have you thought of running both sites independently of each other? Driving sales with both...while this adds more work, it isn't always a bad idea if you have the time, energy and money to do it properly.

I would love to hear what your process was to arrive at your current decision to change things so drastically. Many times, its a persons own dislikes of the site that drive such changes, not feedback from the clients and the issues they are having. Also, I'm not impressed with the new "look" at all, I actually think it's less natural for users when arriving, as many folks are comfortable now in a traditional eCommerce environment.

[Vaijero_Maya]

I totally agree with all the above, mostly important, instead of redirection, try your best to KEEP your URLS, each URL has a reputation, page rank and SE positioning. I checked your new site (in development), don't remove the keywords, description and title, keep it the same way.

I've been there... it helps to change the HTML, and keep the content intact. In fact you can have better results if your html is better than the previous one (with the same content). Optimization of content is advised: put content first (using css) and navigation, footers and headers at last.

[ozzie_jim]

I'd like to hear where the site isn't serving your customers? What are the issues / concerns you have with the current site? Can you address this in OsCommerce with some updates and upgrades?

Also, why the domain name change? Seems like you are going from a really solid domain, to an okay domain. Whats the thought in the change?

Hi Weslinda, just to clarify:
I'm not changing the domain. The new URL is just a test URL that I had spare.

In answer to your questions about OsCommerce:
I have 2 very different coffee machine customers; office and home.

Office users don't know what they need. So the new site is very information rich. It tells them what questions they need to be asking to get the right result. Then we consult with them about plumbing, supplies etc to complete the sale. They don't want lists of machines by price. They will shop on service, ongoing support, price per cup, nationwide representation etc.

Home users know the brand and model that they want and are mainly there to price shop. Because competing on price is a mugs game the new Home users site is a price comparison site only. This uses a redesign of OsCommerce to finally send them off to a competitor who wants to sell home coffee machines.

So the new landing page attempts to send them off to each respective area where they get treated very differently.

Can you address this in OSCommerce with some updates and upgrades?

hhmmm. Dunno. But now that my big idea of the simple landing page has been shown as a bad idea I might be heading to an OsCommerce template system.

Thank you all again. You've given some terrific advice.

[sharonjackson]

What I do like about the new site is that the size is constrained and it looks "cleaner...". There would be nothing wrong with instead of <table width="100%"> make it <table width="800"> More white space..and you could update your banner a little, make it deeper, more generous...250-300 high. You might be amazed at how "new" it will look with some simple design changes.

[T-G]

I think your new site looks really good, I look at the old site and think, huh, too hard, don't know where to look? Whereas your new site is very simple. I think users will like it better and hopefully you'll convert more.

I am moving to similar image rich sites and simply placing the content of the old sites below the main intro images. I am also extremely careful to retain exactly the same titles, descriptions, H1, alt tags and even image names, even if the images change.

I did some quite minor changes to a site recently and my OK ranks were lost, rather than wait to see what happened I panicked and put the old site back, not sure what would have happened if i'd waited.

IMO if you change to the new site and loose all that content your number 1 rank will be toast. Your new site is very simple, it could even be 1 giant image, you could keep your current site as it is, and simply insert this giant image at the top of the page? That's what I'd do.

Good luck

[slobjones]

My current site is #1 in google Australia for all the important keywords "coffee machine" "espresso machine" etc.

I'd always been told that "espresso machine" is Australian for "beer."

My old site: Coffee Machine Express

On the new site, it appears that the "offices" woman is making fun of the "home" guy's boxer shorts.

Hope this helps!