Google’s John Mueller was asked a question about whether changing the design of a website and leaving the URLs and the content the same would lead to changes in the rankings. To which John Mueller responded it likely will as “if you change the design, you generally change the content.”
Recommendation:
If you change design, you generally change the content: headings, titles, images, internal linking, URL structure, accessibility, speed, etc – they’re all critical parts of a site and I’d consider them as content too.
So even if you are making no changes to anything outside of how the page looks to the users, there are maybe some changes that Google will pick up on in terms of your page speed, internal linking, content positioning, accessibility, and much more.
Here Are The Tweets
Sure — if you change your site, search will take the changes into account over time. You can't avoid that, and in many case, you explicitly want the changes to be taken into account (for example, if you improve your site).
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) April 18, 2021
If you change design, you generally change the content: headings, titles, images, internal linking, URL structure, accessibility, speed, etc – they're all critical parts of a site and I'd consider them as content too.
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) April 18, 2021
Conclusion
You can update your website’s design and still expect minimum changes in the rankings if you manage to control everything else in regard to the content. So if you have a good SEO then you do not have to be afraid to update the website’s design.
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