I think I have come to the realization that I have probably done more damage than good to my website over the past couple of years.
My website used to bring me 99% of my business, mostly through my IDX, which for a time was powerful enough to put me on page one of Google for many of the listings in my MLS.
I would get enquiry after enquiry about "your listing", because the general public assume that when they land on an agent's site, it is obvously their listing. I was also sick of getting calls from agents threatening to sue me because I was "advertising" their listing on my site. Not to mention the numerous calls from principals asking me to remove pictures of their home from my site, which obviously I had no responsibility of control.
I wish those days were back. It meant I was being seen.
So what happened? I decided to fix what was not broken. I wanted my site to be more "intelligent" by adding breadcrumbs, and if I was adding those then I needed to have a site hierarchy. What do I mean by that? Previously I just slapped pages up there without a parent, so there was no logical trail for the breadcrumbs to follow, and they would have been pointless. Did that actually matter? No. I never needed the breadcrumbs. Google was following me very well and visitors to my site were always complimenting me on how great it was and how easy it was to find things.
After I changed the structure of the site, even with the proper redirection of pages in place, my site visitors and ranking dropped like a brick. I am still on page one for a couple of niche keywords, but try finding me for a listing. I am buried somewhere in oblivion.
I do know that others have seen a decline in their IDX presence, but nothing like mine. And some who have the same IDX are still doing well.
SEO is a fickle friend, and trying to keep up with Google's algorithms could drive you to the madhouse.
I am trying to live with what I have for now and hope that the love returns. Let's see how long that lasts.
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