when you change the look of a blog does it hurt your seo

[Abby]

I did 2 new blogs and after a short while changed the themes, now both have lost their alexa rank, is that the change, the theme or just my bad luck.

[Colmike7]

It's very possible that it's the theme change and most likely the cause imho. Maybe analyze how things were structured before the change and after and see if you can touch things up?

[Abby]

hey thanks for that reply. I was thinking if the categories being on the left now instead of the right might have had something to do with it.

I might change the side bar back to the right see what happens.

[TheButcher]

Alexa is a third party site that ranks sites according to the user with their tool bar. It has nothing to do with Search engine traffic going up or down. Now the theme might affect your seo but I doubt it makes a change in your alexa rank.
My 1 cent

[Colmike7]

I don't think it's as much as the sidebar going from one side to another as it is other things. More like some themes are SEO optimized, some aren't, some have custom options that will be gone when you change themes, some will have different output even if you're using a SEO plugin and keep those settings after the change, etc.

As for Alexa dropping, Butcher is right, that has to do with traffic. But.. SERPs dropping will definitely change that, so...

[CanadianChick]

This never crossed my mind, I am always changing themes on my blogs.

[Kev]

This never crossed my mind, I am always changing themes on my blogs.

Bingo

[Wm2man]

Google does not care if it is wp theme change or any other change, it picks up the new layout.

[vblogger]

Yes it can and not all WP themes are great as others for seo

[koster]

I small change of say a line is not important a theme change gets picked up by Big G a s a 'change'.

[DeSexGuide]

How much change are we talking of, changing a blog into a tube site, or just some design modifications.

[ezdoesitz]

Well I be darned I did not know this I keep switching themes on the blogs all the time.

[gspotman]

so the short answer is yes it hurts you search engine traffic.

[Colmike7]

so the short answer is yes it hurts you search engine traffic.

"potentially"
But, let's say that I have a blog on the worst structured theme around, then I change themes to a clean, well structured and SEO optimized theme. That will most likely help.
If I have one Genesis based theme and move to another Genesis based theme, where the difference is just topical, there probably won't be a difference in SEO.

[koster]

You want to keep a site up to date or worry about minor details??