Changing of WP theme and how it affects SERPS
 

I am interested in other people's experiences. For example, if I want to replace the outdated WP theme and move to Generate Press (with the goal of replicating the same or similar page layout). How WP theme replacement affected your rankings?

As far as I remember, each time when I was doing it, there was some drop in traffic.

thanks

In theory, you should only benefit from the update.

Make sure that the following boxes are ticked:
- The page contents and (ideally) placements are identical.
- The links are functioning, and proper redirects are set in place (if there's a need).
- The theme itself is fully optimized (unnecessary CSS and JavaScript removed, including unneeded and/or obsolete jQuery modules), meaning minify everything, and inline the CSS and JavaScript if your theme is simple enough.
- Remove the unnecessary HTML bloat from WordPress by inserting the proper functions in the theme's functions.php.

There is absolutely zero reason for you not to benefit if all of the boxes above are ticked, and even if they aren't, it will probably be better than something that's bloated and outdated.

yes, I agree. thank you. In theory but what experience says?

If the links and everything else is the same, then it shouldn't affect Serp in any way. The only problem I can think of is that if your page somehow loads slower than it did with the old theme then you may have a problem. Do a speed test before and after to find out and if its slower, make sure you speed it back up.

Personally; I've only had positive results.

But, do note the following:
- I always code my own WordPress theme, and have a clean HTML structure, meaning that there will be absolutely no bloat whatsoever.
- Free (or paid) WordPress themes will have bloat that you need to remove.

I've had friends who more or less followed the advice, but still ended losing traffic initially, because they messed up on something like: they had a different amount of related posts in the new theme, or a different display (meaning, maybe they were listing related posts as thumbs with text in a previous version, and in a new one with text as alt's, etc) and all of those things matter quite a bit.

If you are certain that you made a clone of the page's contents on the new theme, that it uses the same exact titles, descriptions, etc, etc. and if it also loads faster, then it's practically a no-brainer, and you should do it ASAP.

Ok, thanks. Will need to find someone familiar with Generate Press to do the detailed copy. If I start working on it alone,it will just take my time. On my sites where I am using generate press, speed is very good, everything is in green