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
-
Is a Wordpress AMP plugin sufficient, or should we upgrade our WP theme to an AMP theme?
Hello there, our site is on a Flatsome Wordpress theme (which is responsive and does not support AMP), and we are currently using the AMP for Wordpress plugin on our blog and other content rich pages. My question is - is a plugin sufficient to make our pages AMP friendly? Or should we consider switching to a theme that is AMP enabled already? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tnixis
Katie0 -
Difference hummingbird and rankbrain
From my understanding hummingbird is the fact that google is able to parse sentences and link entites to understand the meaning of content in a better way than with just keywords and rankbrain is about user intent, google understands that they are various ways to mean the same thing. Is my understanding correct ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
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 -
If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance?
Hi, If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
Website copying in Tweets from Twitter
Just noticed a web developer I work with has been copying tweets into the website - and these are displayed (and saved) one page at a time across hundreds of pages (this is so they can populate a twitter feed, I am told). How would you tackle this, now that the deed's been done? This is in Drupal. Your thoughts would be welcome as this is a new one to me. Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
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 -
Website stuck on the second page
Hi there Can you please help me. I did some link building and worked with website last couple of months and rank got better but all keywords are on the second page, some of them are 11th and 12th. Is there anything I did wrong and google dont allow the website on the first page? Or should I just go on. It just looks strange keywords are on the second page for 2 weeks and not going to the first page for any single day. The website is quite old, around 10 years. Anyone knows what it is or where I can read about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fleetway0 -
Why should your title and H1 tag be different?
Is it dangerous to have your H1 tag and your title the exact same thing? My thought was that it's not be the best use of space, but that it couldn't cause harm. What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes7