Real Estate Website Migration Update
In my last post on here, I went over the process I was going through migrating my website from a WordPress platform with IDX integration over to the Real Estate Webmasters platform. So here is a little update for those who are following.
First of all, right after my previous post I decided to make a major change and switch my domain over to a new URL. TheParkCityLifestyle.com is now 301 redirected to ParkCityLuxuryRealEstate.com. All of the IDX pages were individually redirected to corresponding pages thanks to a programmer friend who was willing to help. For anyone else looking to do something like this, you will most likely end up doing a 301 redirect of all subpages to the index page of your new website from what I was told. All main pages and blog posts can be pointed to the new URL string on the new site pretty easily through your hosting account. Drew can correct me if I am wrong about the IDX redirecting as Virtual Results deals with this on a regular basis I would assume.
Tip of the Day: Choose the right domain the FIRST time so you don’t have to go through this!
Even with the redirects in place, my SERP rankings have been on the fritz for a solid two months. Previously, I could be found on page 3-4 for my main terms and now I am anywhere from page 4-12 depending on the day. This is with a significant amount of SEO and linkbuilding being done in the past months which seem to have very little effect as of now. It is a pain that will pay off in the end is what I keep telling myself. If anyone else has gone through this process and has some insight as to what happened, please contact me as I would love any information you could provide.
As for the stats on the new website vs. old, I am seeing an increase in organic traffic even with the drop in rankings for major terms. I can only imagine what the traffic will be like when the rankings stabilize to where they should be. Long-tail traffic is way up from what it used to be on my old IDX solution providing a big chunk of my daily traffic. Bounce rate has dropped to 40% from 50%, and conversion rate has doubled. I’ve been told by numerous people that I should see a big boost around the 6 month mark but I am hoping for much sooner than that.
The REW platform has been extremely easy to work with and I highly recommend it. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about this whole process and I’d be glad to help.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 22:18h, 14 December“Drew can correct me if I am wrong about the IDX redirecting as Virtual Results deals with this on a regular basis I would assume.”
Depends on a number of things. If the idx provider stays the same, all the links should work fine as long as there is a 301 on the route domain.
Ben Fisher
Posted at 11:49h, 15 DecemberIf you are switching IDX providers, what does VR do to transition all of these pages. Or do you just do a batch 301 of all IDX pages to the main page?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 11:53h, 15 Decemberwe don’t really deal with this on our Agent Plus platform ( http://virtualresults.net/predesigned-websites-work/). Some of those clients had ds prior to moving to VR, and many of them had no IDX or an IDX that isn’t indexed…so not really an issue.
On custom sites, same thing. We haven’t had to deal with this too much, though certainly we’ve done a massive number of 301 redirects for some custom/consulting clients – but most of those redirects were for pages of content, not IDX pages.
Jessica Morgan
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Matt Pernice
Posted at 20:57h, 03 FebruaryHow is the migration from WordPress to REW site going? I am debating moving my site over to REW but thinking it might be too much work. My site alright has great traffic so not sure I should. How do you like the REW platform?