Does changing the wordpress template affect SEO

[NdeJonge]

I'm thinking about changing my template for newpokerpromotions.com to a 3 column template. However, I am worried this will negatively affect my search engine results. This is because last time i changed templates I went to 0 views for 2 days before returning to my regular 15-20 after I went back to the original template.

Was this a coincidence or did changing the template negatively affect my views.

[sigurd]

Changing template changes the code on your site, so it will impact your SEO one way or another.

If you use templates that has "pretty" code, I don't think this should be much of a problem. However, some templates contains all sorts of messy code, which can mess things up.

[gtycoon]

I ve seen the effects of this time and time again.

There are some that google absolutely loves.

[pokermonger]

Any time you change anything in the code on a page, it can have positive or negative consequences to your SEO efforts. No matter what you use for a template, your goal should be to have the cleanest code possible.

[kingcobra]

Any time you change a site this way it will usually have a negative impact but that is often temporary and as a rule if it's a good change then it certainly can't hurt you long term. SE's love change but at the same time eye it with suspicion initially. That's about the best way I could put this.

[jagan]

I will say not much effect, but you need to change things in header, footer etc templates as per old template if you optimized that design...

[traveller]

I think it depends. I used a pretty complex theme on a blog and then decided to ditch it for something easier. It did have some bad results for few days but then the change proved to be better. I also started redesigning the default wordpress template (got a bit more skilled in this) with SEO in mind and getting rid of a theme I downloaded/paid for and putting the default one with a clean and optimized code really did the trick.

So I think it's not a huge problem if you decide to change WP themes, as long as the new one is better in this matter. Sure, you will have few days of lower traffic, but it will pick up and hopefully increase seriously.

[kingcobra]

Well first of all welcome to the board traveller and it's nice to see another active poster.

That's pretty typical actually and when you make a change very often it's met with negative results initially. There are probably several reasons for this and we can guess at a few but one of them may be to throw people off who are looking to tweak things. Most of the time if you persevere you get rewarded, although that's not always the case of course As a guide if the move makes sense then do it and use that as a guide and the SE's should fall in line soon enough.