How to Minimize the Impact on SEO When Changing Website Theme Templates

Frequently changing website theme templates haswebsite SEOa certain impact. What can be done toreduce the impact of changing theme templates on SEO? Naiba shares some of his own experiences. As for whether the experiences are correct, you can verify them together with Naiba. [caption id="attachment_1842" align="alignnone" width="321"]June 7th Baidu Index Volume[\/caption]

The Impact of Changing Website Theme Templates on SEO

If you are only changing the website theme template, without modifying the website program, domain name, or permalinks (pseudo-static format), the impact on website SEO is generally not significant. However, if you are not careful with details, it could still lead to search engine de-ranking. For example, reduced indexing, decreased crawl frequency, and a drop in rankings for articles that previously had good positions.

Precautions When Changing Website Theme Templates

When changing a website theme, the main focus should be on adjusting the details. These details do not refer to the visual style. Search engines crawl CSS files but will not de-rank you because of CSS style changes. They will only check if the CSS and JS files contain content intended to deceive search engines, which could lead to de-ranking. Therefore, if it's a legitimate theme template, there's no need to worry about changes in CSS files.What you need to worry about when changing a theme template are changes to elements like the title and description.Because the habits and skill levels of website theme template authors vary, the code of the new template you switch to will certainly differ from the previous one.

Pay Attention to Changes in Title and Description

If you were using an SEO plugin and the new theme you switch to also has SEO option settings, you might disable the previously used SEO plugin. In this case, you need to check whether the display effects of both on the webpage are the same. For example:NaibabijiThe previous theme's website title was

奶爸建站笔记 | 记录WordPress建网站教程跟WordPress主题插件推荐

After switching to the new theme template, the title might become like the following

奶爸建站笔记 | 又一个WordPress站点

The new theme might directly use your subtitle as the webpage title content. In this case, search engines will put your new homepage under an observation period. When you discover this issue and change it back, the search engines will be confused again—why did it change again? So, the observation period will be extended. Another aspect is the description, usually the website's description. For example, the current description content for Naibabiji's notes is:

奶爸建站笔记记录的内容有：Wordpress教程、VPS教程、宝塔面板教程、零基础搭建网站教程、奇技赢巧、软件分享、带娃经验、奶爸日记等内容。

If you only pay attention to the changes on the frontend of the new theme template but do not check the changes in the Description from the source code, it will also affect your website. Currently, Baidu's behavior and temperament are unpredictable, so we can only try our best to ensure that our website doesn't change too drastically.

Pay Attention to Changes in Keywords

Regarding keywords, the general advice now is not to set them on the website homepage. Article pages also rarely have them set. There have been messages online saying that Baidu no longer references keywords. Moreover, after years of building websites, Naiba also feels it's unnecessary to write keywords unless your website's positioning is very clear. For personal blogs, it's completely unnecessary to write them; it's better to let Google decide for you (I haven't fully figured out Baidu yet, so I still don't write them.)

Pay Attention to Changes in H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 Tags

Naiba believes that changes in H tags should have the greatest impact on SEO when changing a website theme template. For example.The left side of the image above shows the default H tags after installing the theme, where you can see there are two H1 tags. The right side shows the normal display effect after Naiba modified the theme. From H1 to H6 tags, the weight decreases progressively. The common view in the SEO community is that a page should only have one H1 tag, but this theme results in a page having two H1 tags. Although you might see some SEO experts' sites also having two H1 tags, a new website cannot compare with an old one, especially one belonging to an SEO expert. Moreover, all the theme templates Naiba used before had only one H1 tag per page. If a newly changed theme template suddenly has two H1 tags, doesn't that create more trouble for search engines?

Changes in Other Theme Details

For example, some features added by your previous theme, especially those integrated into articles, should be maintained to be consistent with the previous theme template. This is beneficial for both search engines and user experience. User experience is a very important aspect of website SEO.

What to Do If the New Theme Template Involves URL Changes

In website construction, the most taboo thing is URL changes. Naiba really wanted to modify the website's permalink structure, but considering the uncontrollable factors with Baidu, I decided against it. (If Google were normally accessible domestically, Naiba would have definitely made the change. Google responds very quickly to WordPress permalink changes, basically causing no harm.) By default, if you are usingWordPress Website Building, then after you modify the permalinks, previous articles will automatically 301 redirect to the new links, and Google will update its records quickly. As for Baidu, there is a website revision function in the Webmaster Tools. You can submit it, but if Baidu actually responds to you, I'll be surprised (That's what I say, but you still need to submit it. Who calls Baidu the boss?). Then, if the website articles, widgets, menus, etc., use the old URL links, they all need to be updated to the new ones. Of course, the best approach is to modify the theme template to keep the URLs consistent with the previous ones. The above are Naiba's views on the impact of changing a website theme template on SEO. Let's check back in a week to see if there are any changes in the indexing of Naibabiji Website Building notes and whether this theme change has affected Baidu.