Updating web layout can affect search rankings? Let’s check it out what Google says

In a recent Google office hour hangout, a question has been raised from a site owner as if web design can affect rankings?

Here is the question:

“I recently changed the layout look and feel of my blog and moved away from WordPress. And now using Hugo static site generator for publishing my posts. Does the change in layout impact my ranking and search results?”

However the publisher also cleared that he wouldn’t have changed the url structure and content of the page.

The response from the Google webmaster trend analysis Mr. John Muller was shocking as he said Yes, changing the web design layout indeed affect how a web page rank on the search engine.

Here is the exact explanation given by Mr. Muller

“So just because the… kind of the primary content like the blog posts that you have and the URLs themselves don’t change doesn’t mean that there’s nothing else around all of that, that search engines won’t be able to pick up on. It can definitely affect SEO.”

Site owners often update their web layouts for various reasons just to remove errors and to improve the user engagement.

It altogether is a quick way to adopt latest technology trends and updates. Sometimes CMS (content management system) can also be a reason to change the web layout.

But how does this impact search rankings?

So it doesn’t mean that changing a layout will impact negatively on your rankings, it can be positive as well. Depends on how well a page is structured according to the search engine guidelines.

So making changes into the webpage is not bad, however make sure that changes you have made is really cool and be confirm that the consequences will not be harm your rankings