Search engine performance awful since upgrading one site to MODx

I have an existing site that had great google results. Typing various search words, phrases or the name of the site yielded terrific results.

This site now runs on MODx (for some time time now) and the search engine performance has fallen off a cliff. I suspect the main issue is that I did not pay enough attention to meta words etc within MODx. I was more focused on getting the site functioning in MODx. The other issue is that I have not added Friendly URLs either. I bet this is the main issue.

So my question: what is the best course for getting the search engine performance back? Any MODx tips? There is a lot of content within the site pages that should yield some Google search results.

Thanks!

Hi!

one suggestion from my side would be to submit a sitemap.xml file to googles webmaster-tools, and maybe using the SEO-Strict plugin (if you don’t already use it)

are the urls to the pages still the same, or have they been changed in the process?

jan

*edit -> http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,7346.0.html

I just made the Friendly URLs happen and will look into the meta content.

Jan I will look at your suggestions as well...

Site is here: http://seattlecruiserheads.com/

The first thing that I noticed is that you posted your link without "www" in front. You should be consistent about either using or not using the www, but most people will tend to link to you with it, so I’d recommend that. You’ll want to let Google know which way is your preference, and you can add code to your htaccess file to make all search engines read it that way.

Why does this matter? It should help with your PageRank. Currently, your site does not show ANY page rank, which is probably a big part of why you’re not getting listed much. This is surprising if you had good search listings before. You didn’t change your url, did you? PageRank is primarily based on sites linking into yours. Make sure you add your site to free local listings such as Yahoo Local, Google Maps, and MSN Local.

I also agree that you need to complete your meta description & keywords fields (empty now), then submit a new sitemap to Google, Ask, Yahoo and MSN. Your url’s probably changed with the new site, and the sitemap will help clear that up with the search engines. You may also want to try yelp and truelocal.com. If you participate in any forums or chat groups, make sure to include your link in your profile and in your signature (as forum rules allow!).

Good luck!

If you change your content, and changing the URLs certainly counts, then you’ll see some drops for sure. A before and after peek behind the scenes would allow for the best feedback.

Quote from: ganeshXL at Mar 10, 2009, 01:27 PM

The main cause is certainly page headers = server error 500.

HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error

That’s not good... not good at all. You would have noticed this by checking it via Firefox ("page info", I think it’s an extension) or by simply trying to validate it @ W3C:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fseattlecruiserheads.com%2Farticles.html

A possible fix: disable the highlight plugin (or fix it - it’s just a missing semicolon)
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,22966.msg141714.html#msg141714

Interesting...

Like I said this site used to have wonderful search results when it was a static site. I did switch the site over as a sub domain on my host plan. The site functions well though. I have really done noting with it since getting it running. I am sort of new to 500 Errors and such. The W3C validator will not function due to the 500 error. How do I fix this?

I fixed the semicolon issue in the Highlight plugin. Getting a ton or errors now, but will track those down in time (when I get the time...)

Thanks!

Max

Yup, adding that semicolon to the Highlight plugin did the trick. Working through the little validation errors now: most of them are missing alt tags etc.

Once its all done I will resend the site to the search engines and I guess it will slowly climb upwards.

Thanks to all: I would never have found that without this forum...

Switching it to a subdomain is the same thing as putting it on a totally new domain. You’ll loose all your SE Ranking most likely, because the original site is no longer there.

This is also true. But this site went from being hosted somewhere else to been hosted by me. As there is no money coming in and this site is enjoyed by others this was the quick, cheap alternative. Its my fault totally for not following up on this sooner though. But as the site was functioning just fine I had no idea about the 500 error...

Max

Your links are changed, but I suppose your content is still the same? Did you use a "301 rewrite" in your .htaccess file to tell the search machines where to find the new pages (since the links are just changed)?

The search machines think that you have a new site with other content when you didn’t do that!