Changing website providers
-
After increasing suffering down time from my current website provider, I am seriously considering finding a new one. My only concern is the effect on SERP. Does anyone have any experience with this and what to do and avoid?
-
Hi Brett. I haven't used IDX for my sites because it is not available for our real estate board. If your board has IDX available then you should be able to integrate it into your website. Or you can hire someone to do it for you.
Send me a personal message (via my profile) and I'll tell you who I host with. I can share some ideas with you too.
Marie
-
thanks Marie. my site is ranking in the top 3 for most keywords. Where did you go to create your own wordpress site (bluehost?). Also, how does one deal with the integrated IDX issue for a real estate site from an SEO perspective? thanks
-
Hi Brett,
I'll share with you my experiences. I recently changed hosts from one that gave me some down time issues to a better host and it has improved my site. In my case, my urls did not change at all when I moved from one host to another so once I was moved, I didn't have to worry about 301 redirects.
I have another real estate site that is a templated site by a real estate site provider. These sites are great for realtors who are just starting out and know nothing about web sites. But, I soon found that as I was learning SEO and wanted to apply it to my site that using a templated site was a challenge when it comes to applying SEO. In many cases you can't alter things like the title tag or url structure. What I did was bite the bullet and create my own site (in Wordpress). I then applied SEO to this site and it is doing really well and bringing us in a lot of leads.
Are you ranking well for your keywords? If you are ranking well then I'd build a new site and try to keep all of the urls the same as they were (or 301 them to the appropriate ones if keeping the original structure is not possible). Similarly, if you have backlinks built to multiple pages on your site then the same applies.
If you don't have many backlinks, and if you don't have crazy competition I'd be tempted to just start from scratch.
Like EGOL said, if you go with another templated site provider you're at their mercy. With your own site, you are in control.
Another point I'd like to add is that I have a Canadian real estate site that is hosted in the US and it does really well.
-
I would avoid any JoeSchmoe.com's sitebuilder program. They often become orphans when Joe moves on to other projects.
I would favor something like wordpress that is used by millions of people, installs on your domain and there are many many smart SEOs who can tweak it for top performance.
If you are not into servicing your own databases, templates, etc. there are plenty of people out there who will do that for you on an hourly or contract basis. The important thing is to get someone who knows what they are doing from an SEO perspective.
-
thanks I suspected that this might be the case. The only other major consideration is whether or not to create a site with which I do not have to rely on a hosted site-builder but not sure what my options may be in this regard.
-
OK... it sounds like your site was made with a hosted site-builder.
If that is the case then moving your site will require a lot more planning and care.
If this site has links and rankings then you will need to preserve the URL structure of the site and if that changes use 301 redirects to preserve rankings and linkvalue.
You will also need to preserve your page optimization to be sure that no rankings are lost.
All of this could involve a lot of work.
I would honestly use this as an opportunity to make a huge improvement in your site.
I would either study this very carefully myself and make the move or I would hire a pro to do it for me or to provide close consultation.
If your biz is in Canada and you want to be found by Canadian searchers then you want the server in Canada.
-
I should have been more specific. My website is provided by a company in Canada and the host server is located in the US. If I move to a different company I will essentially have to build a new site with the same (as much as possible) content as I now have. The new company is located in Canada and the server is in Canada. Not sure if this will make a difference?
-
Changing hosting companies is a very safe thing to do as long as you are going to a quality host and their servers will be in the same country as your current host.
If your site is down a lot it could have a positive effect on your SERPs - so going to a quality host could be a good thing.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Changing URL to a subdomain?
Hi there, I had a website www.footballshirtcollective.com that has been live since July. It contains both content and eCommerce. I am now separating out the content so that; 1. The master domain is www.footballshirtcollective.com (content) pointing to a new site 2. Subdomain is store.footballshirtcollective.com (ecommerce) - pointing to the existing site. What do you advise I can do to minimise the impact on my search? Many thanks Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mjmaxwell0 -
Google indexed wrong pages of my website.
When I google site:www.ayurjeewan.com, after 8 pages, google shows Slider and shop pages. Which I don't want to be indexed. How can I get rid of these pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Credit Links on Client Websites
I know there have been several people who have asked this but a lot of them were back in 2012 before many of the google changes. My question is the same though. With all the changes with Google's algorithm. Is it okay to put your link on the bottom of your clients website. Like Web Design by, etc. Part of the reason is to drive traffic but also if someone is actually interested who designed the website, they will click it. But now reading about how bad links can hurt you tremendously, it makes me second guess if this is ok. My gut feeling says, no.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | blackrino0 -
Convertinh Website for Mobile ?
Dear All, My website (a rental website where you can hire anything online) currently has approx 1/3 of it's traffic from mobile devices , ipads, iphones, blackberry , HTC etc etc. The bounce rate is slightly higher for these at 47% but we have not optimised our site to be mobile friendly as yet. This is something I want to do. Do we just make it fit well into a 320 pixel screen or should we do new wire frames etc and essentially make a cut down website just for mobile. One of the things I know we will do is to make it pick up someones location and retrieve results nearest to them but is there any other do's and don'ts when going down the mobile route ?. I seem to find conflicting infomation when researching this , one example is about using a different url for mobile , one site says it gets you more traffic whilst another says don't use a different url. Also does anyone know of any good tips or sites where I can get some useful info about making the site Mobile Friendly >? thanks Sarah.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahCollins0 -
Hosting Providers and SEO
I have been wondering for a while which web host provider is the best for SEO purposes? Things to consider. Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Server Location of the Host Provider Site Up Time One question that I have been thinking about is what impact would changing a host provider have on a websites serps ranking? Is there a possible negative impact and if so how can it be avoided? Name the top 3 Web Hosts for SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Changing my url name? Should I do it?
Hi, I am targeting a brand called Creative Recreation, who are a trainers brand. We currently rank ok-ish for certain terms for Creative Recreation Trainers, Footwear and Creative Recreation [INSERT STYLE NAME HERE]. Our main search term I think we would like to improve on is "creative recreation trainers" as we are 6th for this. Our domain name points to the brands page as designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/creative-recreation/ Now what I want to know is, would it be worthwhile or would it affect my current rank/index if I changed the end of that url to read /creative-recreation-trainers/ thus getting the keyword phrase in the url? Creative-Recreation is a hard one to crack as you have a lot of competition from the brands site etc.. Any ideas on this? Cheers Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
How do I go about changing a 302 redirect to a 301.
Hello Friends! Thanks for viewing my question. Ok,My question today is How do I go about redirecting a 302 link to a 301 link. I understand the benefits of doing this as far as link juice and how the Search Engines views the two Re-Directs. I am wanting to know where I would start to do this. Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0 -
Domains for regional websites
Please take a look at 7city.com This landing page contains links to: www.7city.co.uk www.7city.ae www.7city.com.sg and our US website which is also www.7city.com It is programmed so: If you are a first time user and type www.7city.com you go to the landing page above. If you then click on AMERICAS, it sets a cookie and directs you to http://www.7city.com/home . When you revisit www.7city.com in the future as the cookie is set you will be automatically sent to the AMERICAS website i.e http://www.7city.com/home. Our US websites is nor performing well on organic ranking compared to other regional website. Is the above technique hindering our organic ranking in the US. Also, I have been led to believe that you get a higher ranking if the domain is specific to a country. Is this true? Does 7city.com receive higher ranking than if I created it as 7city.us for example? Many Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | markc-1971830