Will a total overhaul of my website affect Google SEO Rankings?

because of the key word change definitly it will be affected

Of course it will. When you say overhaul...I recommend you do just a little bit at a time, and keep an eye on your SERPS during the process.

Take it slow and steady...very slow, and very steady.

What you should also do...if you have an FTP program, is go to your public_html > website directory and download ALL files into a folder.

That way if something goes wrong, you can just upload the files you backed up and overwrite everything.

backup, backup, backup my friend.

Also if you're changing domains, you want to set up a permanent 301 redirect on the old domain, pointing to the new location.

Yes, there is a good chance that your rankings will fluctuate with onsite changes.

I would not put the old site up under a new domain. This will just end up being duplicate content and hurt you in the long run.

And also like the previous poster said make a backup of your current site just in case you need to revert back to it. There is no guarantee how the search engines will take the change.

Thanks for all the input.

The new website is currently up and running already, and looking at this thread I realized how much of a downfall this could be for our rankings -- we have worked on the SEO for quite sometime already and I am impressed with it's rankings.

Which plan would you recommend:

PLAN A:

Keep the NEW website up and running (its been about 2 days already). If the rankings begin to drop significantly, then immediately revert and upload the OLD website.

If rankings are consistent or better, then a month later, upload the OLD website on a separate URL domain name.

PLAN B:

Immediately revert back to the OLD website to play safe and secure the current strong rankings. Upload the NEW website on a separate domain URL. Traffic would still be at a low for the NEW website. SEO may take months before significant traffic comes in.


Question - How much time do I have to make a final decision on this?

Thanks!

I'm not understanding why you didn't just upload the new site under a new domain instead of going through the trouble of ul the new site on the old domain and ul the old site on the new domain. It just seems your working backwards and sabotaging your own sites. WHY???

Like Paul said Tweeking your Title, description, meta tags probably wont affect your rankings much unless your tags were just totally off and even then you should only see a slight fluctuation. But the content on your site if it is totally different(new from old) there is a possibility of your site disappearing for awhile while Google reevaluate your site content.

As far as A or B...It really hard to say cuz if your ranking drop and you change it back it wont guarantee you'll get that ranking back as quick as you lost it. Mostly likely it'll take longer to get it back. Since you've already moved it I would just let it take it's course. And you dont have to wait a month to load the old site. You can do it today if you like. there is no duplicate content issue on separate domains. Duplicate content is only an issue if on the same domain.