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Business

SERGIO RODRIGUEZ
SERGIO RODRIGUEZ
17,532 Points

Is there a right and a wrong way of updating my site?

I have a small business site and I want to do some changes in the content and style of some of my important pages, including the index (I won't change domain name or hosting provider).

I was planning to do the following process: 1) Do the updates locally on my computer using the same files I used to create my first site. I use Sass so I wont be using the exact same files that are online (the css compiled file is the same though).

2) Upload the new files through an SFTP software such as cyberduck overwriting the original files (no changes in file names, but there are some new pages).

3) Keep doing business as usual.

a) Will this approach hurt my SEO? b)Is it ok to work on the local files or should I download the files that are in the server and work on them? (I don't know if google saves any type of meta information related with the actual uploaded files)

Thanks!

1 Answer

If you're overwriting existing files on the server, just be sure that the local versions were exactly the same as the server files before you started making changes. That way you won't see any unexpected changes when you upload the new files to your server. You're doing well by using SFTP instead of regular FTP, too! The more secure your connection, the better.

The workflow itself won't affect SEO at all. What will affect SEO is the metadata in your HTML, the frequency and quality of your content, and a variety of other factors. I recommend taking the SEO Basics course right here on Treehouse if you haven't already. :)