Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Possible to Migrate Website Design to Different Theme?
-
Last year we purchased a $79 them and coded a new designer our real estate website. The database of listings was transferred to the new theme.
A year later we realize the new theme is not that fast; does not perform great, so despite optimizing our server we are not getting very fast performance.
So, my question is, can we take the design, the CSS of our current theme (and database) and transfer it to a better performing theme? We are in a very competitive niche and our website must perform quickly both desktop and mobile.
If this is feasible is this a major production? Note we are very happy with the design and this would solely be to improve download speeds to improve the user experience and get better ranking.
Thanks,
Alan
-
Hi Pat:
Thanks for your answer/response! Our URL is www.metro-manhattan.com
To answer your questions:
1. When we moved the site to a new theme/database the URL structure did not change. However, about a year before we migrated to a new domain and and went HTTP to HTTPS (secure) so there are redirects. 301 redirects were used.
2. All the on page optimization moved when we changed themes.
3. Yes, there are some unnecessary URLs, but they are managed by robot.txt.
4. Gzip compression/caching/cdn has been implemented to speed up site. My SEO provider is constantly adjusting but the site is not particularly fast.
If we were to custom develop the same functionality without purchasing a theme, would the performance (Google Page Speed, GT Metrix) be much better?
If we are satisfied with the structure, design and functionality of our site, is custom coding a costly venture?
Thanks,
Alan -
Hi Alan,
Before moving theme again, have a look at the current situation.
With site migrations/template changes there are a few things to note:
-
when your listings where moved to new DB, did the URL structure change, is so did they use 301 redirects ?
-
when you moved template, did all the onpage optimization move with the template. (Titles, Descriptions, content, image naming, image descriptions).
-
indexation, does the new template output any extra/unesscary urls ? If so they need to be managed by robots.txt
-
Have gzip compression/caching/cdn been implemented to speed up site?
Most likely there is work that could be done to improve with going to purchase another theme. In my own experience purchased themes tend to be heavier & in some cases quite code heavy oppose to custom dev which Focuses on using less resources to make things work,
Hopefully some the above helps, without rebuilding the site.
pat
-
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
-
SEO on dynamic website
Hi. I am hoping you can advise. I have a client in one of my training groups and their site is a golf booking engine where all pages are dynamically created based on parameters used in their website search. They want to know what is the best thing to do for SEO. They have some landing pages that Google can see but there is only a small bit of text at the top and the rest of the page is dynamically created. I have advised that they should create landing pages for each of their locations and clubs and use canonicals to handle what Google indexes.Is this the right advice or should they noindex? Thanks S
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bedynamic0 -
How to rank my website in Google UK?
Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least - I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo0 -
Why differents browsers return different search results?
Hi everyone, I don't understand the reason why if I delete cookies, chronology, set anonymous way surfing in Chorme and Safari, I have different results on Google. I tried it from the same pc and at the same time. Searching in google the query "vangogh" the internet site "www.vangogh-creative.it" is shown in the first page in Chrome but not in Safari. I asked in Google webmaster forum, but nobody seems to know the reason of this behavior. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance. Massimiliano
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vanGoGh-creative0 -
Mobile website on a different URL address?
My client has an old eCommerce website that is ranking high in Google. The website is not responsive for mobile devices. The client wants to create a responsive design mobile version of the website and put it on a different URL address. There would be a link on the current page pointing to the external mobile website. Is this approach ok or not? The reason why the client does not want to change the design of the current website is because he does not have the budget to do so and there are a lot of pages that would need to be moved to the new design. Any advice would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andypatalak0 -
My website is not ranking for primary keywords in Google
I need help regarding some SEO strategy that need to be implemented to my website http://goo.gl/AiOgu1 . My website is a leading live chat product, daily it receives around 2000 unique visitors. Initially the website was impacted by manual link penalty, I cleaned up lot of backlinks, the website revoked from the penalty some where around June'14. Most of the secondary and longtail Keywords started ranking in Google, but unfortunately, it do not rank well for the primary keywords like (live chat, live chat software, helpdesk etc). Since I have done lot of onsite changes and even revamped the content but till now I dont find any improvement. I am unable to understand where I have got structed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sandeep.clickdesk
can anyone help me out?0 -
Different domains for multilingual website
Hey guys, A site that I'm currently working on as different domains for each website language. So for example: word1word2.com for the english version word3word4.com for the french version word5word6.com for spanish version .... Is it better to move all of the different languages to the same domain and use subfolders for each language /fr/... Please note that the domains being used bring in organic traffic as well as they are EMDs. Thank You.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0 -
Server Migration, Does it effect SEO?
About to go through a server migration. My intitial thought is that a change in servers shouldn't really change my rankings. But I've heard rumors... Can a server migration change rankings? Why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Thos0030 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0