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September 5, 2007 - by Bill Nixon
  
Does changing the navigation structure affect SEO

How navigation and file naming relate to indexing
  

I was asked today whether changing the navigation structure of your website affects the SEO efforts at all. The short answer is "probably not", but there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

1. Google indexes pages, not site structures. Thus, if a page like http://www.example.com/page-you-are-worried-about.html is in Google's index, then it is there. Google will regularly crawl your site to see if it is still there, but as long as it is, then it stays in their index (and hopefully their search results) You should maintain a site-map to make sure that the page is always crawlable. That is, when the spiders visit your site, they should always be able to get to that page.
2. Don't change file names. The biggest problem with de-indexing pages is when webmasters change file names of their pages. That is, they read something about having their keywords in their domain names (very important BTW) and they change a pages file name rather than writing a new page. Keep in mind, Google indexes a page by name. Say the name of your page was /page1.html and you want it to match your keywords. So you change it to /my-keyword-phrase.html. The result is that Google will no longer be able to find /page1.html when they visit. They will be forced to de-index that page. Sure, they will find the new page, but it would have been better to just write a totally new page and then archive /page1.html than to rename it out of laziness.
3. Be sure to get up-and-running fast. Sometimes, when changing a navigation structure to a website, webmasters prioritize the tasks for the public and forget about the spiders. That is, they get the new page up and running without creating a link (or series of links) that would take the spiders to the old, already-indexed, page. Remember, that when you are redesigning a nav structure, you have to keep the older stuff so that the spiders will be able to find it. What I typically do is to build an "archive" area where old pages live. Those pages get a place under that directory with links to them via my sitemap. I do this first BEFORE building the new pages and rearranging the structure of the site. After they are settled into their new homes called the Archive directory, I revamp the navigation structure of the site and go live with the changes. If you do this process in reverse, spiders may visit your site and not find the pages they used to index.