Anyone have experience switching CMS systems and their effect on SEO? I have a Drupal site which I had big ideas for and now I feel is a little over-the-top with Drupal when something like Wordpress would be better suited to it. If I switch over, will I kill my SEO?
Drupal was not a good choice from the start. Going to Wordpress or a modern SEO friendly CMS application is recommended. How many pages do you have so far? What is the extension of the files .Net, .php, asp etc. If the extension is different, then it is a total SEO startover. Finally, can you export the database data into excel or ms access. And can you import that data into the new CMS The conversion of the data will be the hardest issue here, not the SEO.
What other modern CMS do you recommend. I was actually thinking about creating a site using Drupal but did not because I did not know which one is good in terms of SEO and plugins
If you are going to do competitive SEO, none are worth a damn. If your are a dynamic programmer, then you know what I'm talking about. If not, you will be over your head. You must have complete control over the inserting of the database data into the correct seo element that is in the correct location within the template(s). For us to compete at the highest level of SEO, we leave the CMS system because of the extream code overhead they have in it (CodeToText Ratio). And this can go on and on. A CMS is a shortcut to web design and as such will have weakness.
I cannot agree more. I tell all my clients that they need custom-made engines. All CMSs have their weaknesses in the template engine, thus they cannot compete on the SEO market with a professional dynamic developer
you can create a variety of community-driven sites, including blogs, forums, wiki-style sites, and much more.
So far wordpress is flexible and user friendly.But joomla is rock solid and monster.Drupal is for advanced webmasters.As far as SEO i recommend wordpress.
So as someone who has a bit of development experience as well -- Should I develop my own web interface instead of using a boxed solution? I could probably fit my content into like 12 fields in a table so it's not complicated stuff. I just figured having the CMS would make things easier from the backend.. however I find Drupal has far too many options/features for what I need it for.
The Question is this what would you like to do with your site what must your site do. Joomla is good for Personal Site Portal Site Membership Site Fitness Site Music Site Business Site Video Site Wordpress is good for Blog Sites Oscommerce is good for Ecommerce Site Boonex is good for Social Networking Site Hope this helps you.
In my experience, WordPress is an excellent CMS for SEO. There are many plugins that make it easy to manage your meta data without knowing much code. In addition, if you utilize the excerpt function in posts, you can create tag and category pages that have completely unique content and link to your main articles--thus giving you even more pages to land in the SE without worrying about duplicate content. I use WordPress for most of my design projects because it is so flexible. There's a plugin for almost anything you would want to do. In addition, I have seen no negative effects to my search engine ranking. Maybe for a more competive field this would be an issue, but for me, it hasn't been a problem--just make sure you have strong content. I looked at going custom, but I was quoted $26,000 to build what WordPress can already do. So unless you have the skills or the money, WordPress is a fine choice.