Will changing our CMS platform affect our rankings?

• We're planning to move a product site to a new CMS. I'm wondering if there's a limit on the number of redirects that can be done? Also, what's the best way to do this so we don't lose rankings?

Answer:

In the words of Google's venerable John Mueller,

From a purely SEO perspective, changing the CMS framework on your site URLs is tricky, at best, if your desire is to maintain your rankings.

To do so you'd have to end-up with the same exact mark-up, content, meta and micro data, URLs, load speed and everything else that constitutes your current site from an SEO perspective. That would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

If you're changing the framework based on project requirements to meet new needs that your current framework can't offer, then it better be worth the six months (or more) time it could take to recover your rankings.

On the other hand, if your rankings aren't currently "great," then you have little to lose. This could be an opportunity to improve your on-site SEO and also end up with a more robust website with new features and functionality which is better optimized for search engines and users alike.

As to redirects, you can do as many as you like — but try to keep it under "20 billion."