Common Issues and Questions

This article provides a list of common questions and answers about Hosted Websites that are not covered elsewhere.

• Can I use an OwnerRez Hosted Website without using any other OwnerRez features?
• Can I set a favicon for my Hosted Website, that's visible in browser tabs?
• How do I optimize my Hosted Website for SEO?
• How do I generate a sitemap for my website?
• How do I control the property name that shows on the property page of a multi-property site?
• I'm adding another property to OwnerRez but I don't want it to appear on my Hosted Website just yet.
• How can I "hide" the rates range on my Hosted Website?
• How do I change the order of the properties listed on my website?
• Google says that my Hosted Website speed score is poor. How can I improve it and my SEO?
• Can I prevent search engines from indexing content on a "hidden page" on my website?
• How do I include Cleaning Fees and/or Other Surcharges to be Displayed as Part of Rent?
• Can I block or ban IP addresses from visiting my Hosted Website?
• Where do I add my social media links?

Can I use an OwnerRez Hosted Website without using any other OwnerRez features?

OwnerRez Hosted Websites are driven directly from the database that contains your OwnerRez account. It is not possible to keep the website without having an active OwnerRez account.  Since the website is integrated with your calendars, Book Now, property descriptions, etc., it's not clear what the purpose would be of a Hosted Website that didn't have an underlying operational OwnerRez account.

Can I set a favicon for my Hosted Website, that's visible in browser tabs?

Yes! That's under the Settings of your Hosted Website entry:

As noted, favicons must be square, png or ico format, and no more than 500 Kb in size

How do I optimize my Hosted Website for SEO?

See the Hosted Website SEO Optimization support article for more information.

How do I generate a sitemap for my website?

No need - OwnerRez generates that for you automatically! It's also automatically included in the robots.txt used by all the standard search engines, so they'll know where to find it.

If you need the direct sitemap link, add /sitemap.xml to the end of your domain. So if your site is acmevacations.com, the sitemap link is:

https://www.acmevacations.com/sitemap.xml

How do I control the property name that shows on the property page of a multi-property site?

In most places, the hosted website will show the public name of the property configured on the Info tab of each property (or the name if no public name is configured).

On the individual property page, the title will be the public name of the property. If there is a headline set on the Description tab of the property AND that headline is different than the public name, that page will also show a subtitle with the property headline.

I'm adding another property to OwnerRez but I don't want it to appear on my Hosted Website just yet.

You can easily do this under your Hosted Website settings. Click 'Change Settings' and scroll to the bottom of the page. The default is 'All' so you can change it to 'Everything but' or 'Only' and select which property or properties you need to show/hide.

How can I "hide" the rates range on my Hosted Website?

Don't like how the rates range is displayed on your Hosted Website?

Users that feel confident in their HTML skills can use our CSS snippets to remove rates site-wide. The rest of us should follow the instructions below.

Users can change that by navigating to Settings > My Website >  Hosted Website > their specific Website > Change Settings.

From the Rate Display drop-down list in the Display section, users can select None to hide the rates range site-wide on their Hosted Website.

Be sure to hit Save.

How do I change the order of the properties listed on my website?

OwnerRez properties automatically display in alphabetical order; however, users can change that by navigating to Properties > Display Order.

Select the External tab and drag and drop the properties into the desired order. Click Save.

Google says that my Hosted Website speed score is poor. How can I improve it and my SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is largely a black box, so it's really hard to determine how much Google weighs these potential improvements in their site rankings. Clearly, if two sites scored the exact same on content and general reputation, Google would push the site with the better experience to the top, but the true effect would be hard to measure as no two users search the same, and in reality, the rankings could change week by week as sites pop up and disappear from the web, and Google's engineers make changes to their algorithm.

We definitely see where OwnerRez could make some improvements, but these are largely long-term improvements and won't be things we change overnight. Google also has a very "Chrome-centric" view of how the web works, and many of their suggested improvements (e.g., changing image file formats) would negatively impact people running old legacy browsers still used by a high percentage of users in other parts of the world. This necessitates OwnerRez taking a more conservative approach to implementing new technologies in guest-facing websites.

Generally, if you are on your phone and don't experience notable "bad experience" interactions when using your website, you should be fine from a technology standpoint and would get more impact from improving your content and reputation (getting people to link to your site in a relevant context, i.e. travel blogs, etc). We do and will continue to make incremental improvements to the technology, so you don't have to worry about falling too far behind.

See the How do I optimize my Hosted Website for SEO? section of this support article for specific suggestions to improve your SEO.

Can I prevent search engines from indexing content on a "hidden page" on my website?

While it is possible in theory, there is no certainty or assurance that you can prevent search engines from indexing content on your website's "hidden page." You can try Editing the HTML Source on your website's hidden page, with some of the custom code detailed on Google Search Central's Block Search indexing with noindex documentation.

How do I include Cleaning Fees and/or Other Surcharges to be Displayed as Part of Rent?

For multi-property hosted websites, make sure that your Availability/Property Search Widget is configured as follows: Navigate to Settings > Hosted Website > Properties webpage > Availability/Property Search Widget > Change Settings.

In the Rates section > ensure that the Calculate Stay Totals checkbox is selected and click Save.

Can I block or ban IP addresses from visiting my Hosted Website?

Yes. 

IP (Internet Protocol) banning prevents requests from hosts with specific IP addresses and is vital for cybersecurity, preventing spam, managing resources, ensuring compliance, blocking repeat offenders, and protecting privacy, while still allowing legitimate users to visit your website.

You can now block specific IP addresses from your OwnerRez Hosted Website by navigating to Settings > My Website > Hosted Websites > your Hosted Website > IP Blocklist > + Block IP and add the IP address and description.

Where do I add my social media links?

Instructions for customizing your social media links are in the Theme Creation section of the Theming support article.