Hotel Website Design: Don't Change Domain Names

This post is about another thing that drives us crazy while it hurts the businesses themselves. As the only travel website that connects direct to real lodging websites of all kinds, we probably view more of them than anyone else in the world. We link directly to over 140,000 lodging websites and have to check them constantly. Websites move, open and close every day. In many cases, those are bad moves. Never change your domain name, your internet address, unless it's absolutely necessary and there is no other option.

As we check our listings, for example, we find a bed and breakfast website that doesn't work. Sometimes they redirect properly and other times, the website just doesn't work. A customer would think, "did my favorite B&B close down? I guess they did. I'll have to go somewhere else." At AllStays, we eventually find the bad website link and do a search to find a new website for that same bed and breakfast and update our information. Before we found the change, customers are lost. All the links built over the years on other websites that point to this B&B are lost. Maybe it's a business directory, or the chamber of commerce. Maybe it's lodging sites like ours or maybe it's leading search engines like Google. Links are important on the internet. Some say they are most important thing. No matter what you believe about links and search engines, they do point others to your site. And that is a plus. You wouldn't go around handing out business cards and buying advertising and then move and change your phone number, would you? That is what you are doing when you move your domain name.

There was a time many years ago when you could put up a new website and be found right away. Those days are gone. A new website may take months to be found, if it is found at all. There are fairly good indicators that the age of a domain name is relevant on the internet. Like brick and mortar businesses, do you go to the business you know is good and that has been in town for 20 years or the one that just opened recently? You may eventually check the new one out but you trust the older one more.

Don't just change web addresses because you found a better one. Think long and hard about it if you are already established. And if you do feel that you have to change websites, at least find all the websites that are linking to you already and let them know of the change. Keep the traffic coming. Keep the old website and use it to advertise the new one. Don't let it die or even worse, be bought by someone else who takes your business traffic and name away from you.

We also know that there may be a reason why a website is lost. Web hosts go down or perhaps the owner wasn't really the owner. A domain name company may be crooked and not let the lodging owner keep the name or move it to another host or provider. Maybe the site was setup on some old free hosting site like Yahoo, Geocities or AOL. Those addresses don't look as professional in todays world. But again, keep that old site and point it to the new one. Don't make customers and your partners have to search for you. Most won't go out of their way to find you again.

Corporations change their site structure all the time. We constantly are updating and changing links for a thousand hotels under some big brand name. It's annoying and stupid but they are a corporation and that is what corporations do. They do stupid things. Some of them do this stupid thing every few months. A new marketing firm, a new manager or a new tech has to make an imprint on things so they change it. They don't realize that if they kept the same structure for years, they would benefit from more traffic and in turn reservations.

Hotel Website Design: High End Hotels With Low End Websites

An example of a hotel website that violates so many web design rules, that it makes the site almost unusable, is Wynn Las Vegas. Don't go there yet. The website has one entry point and is all multimedia. You get sound and video. If you don't have the right browser and the latest version of Flash on your computer, you won't get anywhere. You'll get a blank screen with no option to get any more information.

You don't have a newer computer? You are not on a high-speed connection? You are in a library? You have pop-ups blocked or disabled? You work at an office that doesn't have all the bells and whistles in the budget for their computers? You don't want your computer speakers betraying what you are doing on company time? You are listening to your own music or video and don't want to hear Steve Wynn, the owner of this particular hotel, talking to you? Don't go to the official website. This is one of those cases where you get more readable information at a third party travel website like us or others.

Whether it is the ego of website designers or the hotel owners, this kind of hotel website makes it difficult for you to be a customer. You shouldn't have to hunt for phone numbers. You can't find a phone number on Expedia, Hotels.com, or Orbitz, so you should be able to easily find it on the official website. Having a website come up as a blank page on millions of computers is like a business having an unlisted phone number and locked doors. You shouldn't have to upgrade your computer to check out a hotel. You shouldn't have to mute your computer or wake up your family (or boss) to check out a hotel.

There are many hotel websites that are like this so Wynn Las Vegas is not unique. We are just picking an example that you may have heard of before.