Acorn Internet Services Question

[Madeleine]

The Buut CMS allows me to do my own bgd, pix, content, slideshow. Pretty basic though.
Oh....they control/own the platform. The 1and1 is a 1and1-controlled template also. But I have had more CMS tools to use - but AROUND the essential code.
Hence....I want again have own my own "portable" content and file as I did in "the old days" pre-Nov 2012. I built the site, managed the content, uploaded to a host, etc. However, it was "old-school" based on straight HTML 3.0 without any gee-whiz widgets, social, etc.
Enter Buut. And here we are now faced with this crossroad....
We also never used a BOOKING ENGINE of any type BTW....

Do they own the website design and the domain name is what Joey meant. If they own the design and you just copied it you won't be able to keep it. If they own your domain name they can do with it what they want when you go elsewhere. (Someone here had that very problem - the webhost owned their domain and wouldn't turn it over, they simply posted tons of ads on the site while the inn owners had to buy a new domain name and compete with their old, very visible website.)
Also, if you now have 2 sites going live with the same info, that is going to cause you grief with Google.

 

[Buckeye]

The Buut CMS allows me to do my own bgd, pix, content, slideshow. Pretty basic though.
Oh....they control/own the platform. The 1and1 is a 1and1-controlled template also. But I have had more CMS tools to use - but AROUND the essential code.
Hence....I want again have own my own "portable" content and file as I did in "the old days" pre-Nov 2012. I built the site, managed the content, uploaded to a host, etc. However, it was "old-school" based on straight HTML 3.0 without any gee-whiz widgets, social, etc.
Enter Buut. And here we are now faced with this crossroad....
We also never used a BOOKING ENGINE of any type BTW....

Do they own the website design and the domain name is what Joey meant. If they own the design and you just copied it you won't be able to keep it. If they own your domain name they can do with it what they want when you go elsewhere. (Someone here had that very problem - the webhost owned their domain and wouldn't turn it over, they simply posted tons of ads on the site while the inn owners had to buy a new domain name and compete with their old, very visible website.)
Also, if you now have 2 sites going live with the same info, that is going to cause you grief with Google.
.

I own the domains fully. The 1and1 is intended to become the primary site - that's why I built it AFTER Buut came in. 1and1 is a host boilerplate template, ALL content is mine, the architecture is different than Buut. They LOOK sort-of similar, but is MY color scheme that does that, MY bgd pattern, MY tabs and pages, etc. So....I can take my toys and go home anytime.
This is why time is of the essence. I don't want to get slammed by the crawlers with 2 similar-content sites. I'd LOVE to get the website baby put to bed this week. One site only, 2 URLS with one as a redirect. 1and1 was launched as my attempt to duplicate Buut's attempt at getting us up-to-speed with"digital marketing" (snappy term, huh?). Plus, I now want a full Booking interface with our PMS (RmMaster) which Buut can't do. So....I planned to do the 1and1 thing with possibly ResKey popped in. Now....the jury's back out on what-to-do....

 

[Buckeye]

I am not sure what is meant by "[problems with both sites". For one, Buuteeq has control of the HTML so any Title Bar set up is according to to THEIR professional specs.
As for the secondary 1and1 site, I fail to see an issue with Title Bar content as it is fully descriptive of who, what, and where we are.
If you could please reply here with WHAT you believe should be in the Title Bar, that would help. At this point I am re-visiting the whole concept of our website management - fully self-managed vs. professionally set up with just CMS-based mods.
I made the recommended changes several weeks ago as well as notifying Buuteeq. Our 1and1 secondary site is not yet fully finished, as this is a work in progress. If our primary site has "problems" as has been stated, have a BIG problem with that too. They are getting the big bucks with their "expert digital marketing". I have no access to the mark-up, just the basic CMS they provide.
Keep chiming in. I am in the process of my head getting "paradigm-shifted" with regards to the present realities of quality websites and SEO. We have 20 rooms as an independent inn. Maybe it's time for us to move out of template-based website hosting and into the pro-arena where Acorn and Nexus abide? Like they say in Brooklyn....OY VEY!.

Your title bars all say the same thing. So what. You need to use that space more creatively. Name of inn, location of inn, rooms is not creative. You can expand this to surrounding area info. 'Lodging close to ...' or 'Accommodations close to...' and insert some popular place nearby.
You can try to pull in some traffic from neighboring towns by using those town names in some of your title bars - Bike Trails in (name of town or name of bike trail). It looks like you did do some of that work compared with the comments I made previously.
Like EN said, you have 70 characters, use them!
BTW, it's not like your present hosting company doesn't know about this forum, they've been here a few times. Just saying.
.

Pssst....Hey Buut.....ya listenin' ?????
Oh WAIT...no...sorry .....That was the IRS, the CIA and the White House....

 

[Madeleine]

The Buut CMS allows me to do my own bgd, pix, content, slideshow. Pretty basic though.
Oh....they control/own the platform. The 1and1 is a 1and1-controlled template also. But I have had more CMS tools to use - but AROUND the essential code.
Hence....I want again have own my own "portable" content and file as I did in "the old days" pre-Nov 2012. I built the site, managed the content, uploaded to a host, etc. However, it was "old-school" based on straight HTML 3.0 without any gee-whiz widgets, social, etc.
Enter Buut. And here we are now faced with this crossroad....
We also never used a BOOKING ENGINE of any type BTW....

Do they own the website design and the domain name is what Joey meant. If they own the design and you just copied it you won't be able to keep it. If they own your domain name they can do with it what they want when you go elsewhere. (Someone here had that very problem - the webhost owned their domain and wouldn't turn it over, they simply posted tons of ads on the site while the inn owners had to buy a new domain name and compete with their old, very visible website.)
Also, if you now have 2 sites going live with the same info, that is going to cause you grief with Google.
.

I own the domains fully. The 1and1 is intended to become the primary site - that's why I built it AFTER Buut came in. 1and1 is a host boilerplate template, ALL content is mine, the architecture is different than Buut. They LOOK sort-of similar, but is MY color scheme that does that, MY bgd pattern, MY tabs and pages, etc. So....I can take my toys and go home anytime.
This is why time is of the essence. I don't want to get slammed by the crawlers with 2 similar-content sites. I'd LOVE to get the website baby put to bed this week. One site only, 2 URLS with one as a redirect. 1and1 was launched as my attempt to duplicate Buut's attempt at getting us up-to-speed with"digital marketing" (snappy term, huh?). Plus, I now want a full Booking interface with our PMS (RmMaster) which Buut can't do. So....I planned to do the 1and1 thing with possibly ResKey popped in. Now....the jury's back out on what-to-do....
.

In re the web crawls - it took Google less than a week to find my new site and start caching it back in Feb. Google alerts were showing me page after page being crawled when there wasn't even anything on them. A Google search showed me the pages they had found. I had to pw protect everything and ask the bots to not crawl the new site.

 

[Buckeye]

The Buut CMS allows me to do my own bgd, pix, content, slideshow. Pretty basic though.
Oh....they control/own the platform. The 1and1 is a 1and1-controlled template also. But I have had more CMS tools to use - but AROUND the essential code.
Hence....I want again have own my own "portable" content and file as I did in "the old days" pre-Nov 2012. I built the site, managed the content, uploaded to a host, etc. However, it was "old-school" based on straight HTML 3.0 without any gee-whiz widgets, social, etc.
Enter Buut. And here we are now faced with this crossroad....
We also never used a BOOKING ENGINE of any type BTW....

Do they own the website design and the domain name is what Joey meant. If they own the design and you just copied it you won't be able to keep it. If they own your domain name they can do with it what they want when you go elsewhere. (Someone here had that very problem - the webhost owned their domain and wouldn't turn it over, they simply posted tons of ads on the site while the inn owners had to buy a new domain name and compete with their old, very visible website.)
Also, if you now have 2 sites going live with the same info, that is going to cause you grief with Google.
.

I own the domains fully. The 1and1 is intended to become the primary site - that's why I built it AFTER Buut came in. 1and1 is a host boilerplate template, ALL content is mine, the architecture is different than Buut. They LOOK sort-of similar, but is MY color scheme that does that, MY bgd pattern, MY tabs and pages, etc. So....I can take my toys and go home anytime.
This is why time is of the essence. I don't want to get slammed by the crawlers with 2 similar-content sites. I'd LOVE to get the website baby put to bed this week. One site only, 2 URLS with one as a redirect. 1and1 was launched as my attempt to duplicate Buut's attempt at getting us up-to-speed with"digital marketing" (snappy term, huh?). Plus, I now want a full Booking interface with our PMS (RmMaster) which Buut can't do. So....I planned to do the 1and1 thing with possibly ResKey popped in. Now....the jury's back out on what-to-do....
.

In re the web crawls - it took Google less than a week to find my new site and start caching it back in Feb. Google alerts were showing me page after page being crawled when there wasn't even anything on them. A Google search showed me the pages they had found. I had to pw protect everything and ask the bots to not crawl the new site.
.

All the more reason....TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Aggghhhhh....

 

[Breakfast Diva]

The Buut CMS allows me to do my own bgd, pix, content, slideshow. Pretty basic though.
Oh....they control/own the platform. The 1and1 is a 1and1-controlled template also. But I have had more CMS tools to use - but AROUND the essential code.
Hence....I want again have own my own "portable" content and file as I did in "the old days" pre-Nov 2012. I built the site, managed the content, uploaded to a host, etc. However, it was "old-school" based on straight HTML 3.0 without any gee-whiz widgets, social, etc.
Enter Buut. And here we are now faced with this crossroad....
We also never used a BOOKING ENGINE of any type BTW....

Do they own the website design and the domain name is what Joey meant. If they own the design and you just copied it you won't be able to keep it. If they own your domain name they can do with it what they want when you go elsewhere. (Someone here had that very problem - the webhost owned their domain and wouldn't turn it over, they simply posted tons of ads on the site while the inn owners had to buy a new domain name and compete with their old, very visible website.)
Also, if you now have 2 sites going live with the same info, that is going to cause you grief with Google.
.

I own the domains fully. The 1and1 is intended to become the primary site - that's why I built it AFTER Buut came in. 1and1 is a host boilerplate template, ALL content is mine, the architecture is different than Buut. They LOOK sort-of similar, but is MY color scheme that does that, MY bgd pattern, MY tabs and pages, etc. So....I can take my toys and go home anytime.
This is why time is of the essence. I don't want to get slammed by the crawlers with 2 similar-content sites. I'd LOVE to get the website baby put to bed this week. One site only, 2 URLS with one as a redirect. 1and1 was launched as my attempt to duplicate Buut's attempt at getting us up-to-speed with"digital marketing" (snappy term, huh?). Plus, I now want a full Booking interface with our PMS (RmMaster) which Buut can't do. So....I planned to do the 1and1 thing with possibly ResKey popped in. Now....the jury's back out on what-to-do....
.

You are in VERY dangerous territory with google if you have both sites up! At this point, choose one and get the other one down. Google will penalize you for duplicate content and it's again their rules to have to sites for the same thing.
If I were you, I'd get rid of Buuu asap. This is my personal opinion mind you. They would be the last company I would go to and I hang up on them when they call and they won't take me off their call list.
With a property your size, you should pay the bucks to have a site done. I've only got 4 rooms and have had professional sites built! A site that will be YOURS. A site you can pick up and move any time you want to. Never be a hostage.
Because of the questions you've asked (nothing wrong with not knowing), I really think you need to have someone help you. Whether that be a site developed by Acorn or someone else, or pay someone to help you with a WP site, it will pay off in the end.

 

[OnTheShore]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you.

 

[Madeleine]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

Yes, thanks, that's also what I did - disallow robots
So, had 3 different things going to block the crawling!

 

[EmptyNest]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

I have to disagree with this :"trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready."
I am working on several sites under different directories. No one knows them but me and the owner. Not published anywhere. Google has found them all. So I hurry to get them done so I can just make them live.

 

[Buckeye]

OK everyone....been beat up enough now...
OK, just kidding. I'm having a major paradigm shift. First thing Monday, Acorn Internet is getting a call from me and I'm putting the website project in the "essential/critical" category instead of our historic "nice tool to have" category. Costing out a pro site over 5 years amounts to 10-15 room nites per year for us, assuming a $5K investment.
Also, if anyone has experience with ResNex/BNBWebsites, I'd like to hear. I'll be doing some fast comparisons of the two before moving ahead. If you are aware of any other leading-edge B&B Marketing companies, I'm all ears.
In the meanwhile, I'm going to put site#2 with 1and1 into suspended animation......
If anyone else has 2 cents to throw this way, please do. We're now in big-buck territory and I want to do this right.

 

[JBloggs]

OK everyone....been beat up enough now...
OK, just kidding. I'm having a major paradigm shift. First thing Monday, Acorn Internet is getting a call from me and I'm putting the website project in the "essential/critical" category instead of our historic "nice tool to have" category. Costing out a pro site over 5 years amounts to 10-15 room nites per year for us, assuming a $5K investment.
Also, if anyone has experience with ResNex/BNBWebsites, I'd like to hear. I'll be doing some fast comparisons of the two before moving ahead. If you are aware of any other leading-edge B&B Marketing companies, I'm all ears.
In the meanwhile, I'm going to put site#2 with 1and1 into suspended animation......
If anyone else has 2 cents to throw this way, please do. We're now in big-buck territory and I want to do this right..

I like you Hearthstone Inn. You read. You listen. You provide feedback. Great qualities!

 

[OnTheShore]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

I have to disagree with this :"trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready."
I am working on several sites under different directories. No one knows them but me and the owner. Not published anywhere. Google has found them all. So I hurry to get them done so I can just make them live.
.

Hmm, do you suppose that the spider-bots are randomly probing registered domain names to see if there is a site there, rather than following links from existing known pages? If so then the trick would be to name your "home" landing page something other than index, home (etc...) -- and maybe have a temp splash page at index or home (etc...) to throw the bots off the scent.... Still the best way would be a robots.txt file

 

[Buckeye]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

Question on the robots.txt. Do I make the change with the domain registrar (GoDaddyo) or the host 1and1?
I'd just as soon just change the dash site back to being a :"redirect" to the main Buut website for the time being. This way anyone who googles the dash lands on my primary site. I'll keep the 1and1 as a reference point as needed during the transition period.

 

[Madeleine]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

Question on the robots.txt. Do I make the change with the domain registrar (GoDaddyo) or the host 1and1?
I'd just as soon just change the dash site back to being a :"redirect" to the main Buut website for the time being. This way anyone who googles the dash lands on my primary site. I'll keep the 1and1 as a reference point as needed during the transition period.
.

At the host. In your root directory.

 

[Madeleine]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

I have to disagree with this :"trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready."
I am working on several sites under different directories. No one knows them but me and the owner. Not published anywhere. Google has found them all. So I hurry to get them done so I can just make them live.
.

Hmm, do you suppose that the spider-bots are randomly probing registered domain names to see if there is a site there, rather than following links from existing known pages? If so then the trick would be to name your "home" landing page something other than index, home (etc...) -- and maybe have a temp splash page at index or home (etc...) to throw the bots off the scent.... Still the best way would be a robots.txt file
.

The first page of my site that got picked up was the rooms page, not the home page. Odd, right?

 

[Buckeye]

Just put a "robots.txt" file in the home directory that disallows all user-agents from crawling the secondary site, problem solved. Google and other well-behaving spider-bots will respect that and ignore the site. When you are ready for the transfer, edit the robots.txt file to allow them in. (The other trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready -- the bots can't find the site if the URL is not out there somewhere that they already know about. You've already posted the link to your secondary site here, so too late for that!)
If you haven't already, set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools, do so. They will tell you virtually everything you need to fix on your site(s) in terms of page titles, etc... There is really not a lot of magic to SEO -- fill your site with rich and meaningful content that is relevant to people searching for information about your area and looking for a place to stay, including page titles, image alt tages, and headings and subheadings on the page (all good practice for human readers as well as bots), use Google's tools to check the site for problems, and keep the site fresh.
The "magic" part is figuring out what search terms and keywords people are using to try to find what you have to offer, which you really can't obsess over too much -- if you've got the rich, meaningful content, people will find you..

I have to disagree with this :"trick for a site under development is to just never publish the URL anywhere until you are ready."
I am working on several sites under different directories. No one knows them but me and the owner. Not published anywhere. Google has found them all. So I hurry to get them done so I can just make them live.
.

That's because Google might be REALLY good friends with the IRS, CIA, FBI, EPA, and that big white house in DC....you...are...not....alone.......heh heh heh...

 

[Buckeye]

I just did a 302 redirect temporarily for the dash site. Meanwhile.....I think that I'd better get my mind off this website stuff and go to a different thread for a few laughs.....
Keep the comments flowing. I'll be back soon enough....

 

[Copperhead]

Great to see that you are jumping in with both barrels!
White Stone Marketing is another company to look into.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Great to see that you are jumping in with both barrels!
White Stone Marketing is another company to look into..

Great to see that you are jumping in with both barrels!
White Stone Marketing is another company to look into.

Yikes... They're really good, but $$$$$$$

 

[Madeleine]

I just did a 302 redirect temporarily for the dash site. Meanwhile.....I think that I'd better get my mind off this website stuff and go to a different thread for a few laughs.....
Keep the comments flowing. I'll be back soon enough.....

OK, your redirect gives me a pretty hideous site. Broken links, no slideshow, it's the old site that you first put out, all squiffy. It's not the site you posted the link to in this thread. Not by a long shot. And, if you are redirecting it, where are you redirecting it to?
Let me edit this...if I click the link in this thread I get one site, if I just type in the URL I get the squiffy site. You might want to look at that.
So, the redirect works if you click the link, not if you type in the URL.