Hi everybody A quick question, has anybody encounterd their wordpress powered website being condemned to google's supplimental results? Mine has and a few other of my online associates have done so, without doing anything differently compared to a static html website. (eg meta tags, keywords throughout, link building etc). Is there a plugin for example that could allow you to edit the tags for single pages? Any tips would be appreciated.
I posted this question in the CMS forum, but it's worth asking on this thread, too: I've always wondered about the SEO implication of WP, ever since Google started controlling the number of blogs that could appear in top rankings a few years ago, and also there's the fact that sooo many splogs use WP. Are people confident there's no Google penalty for using WP? Frankly, if I were writing Google's algo, I would be extra careful with anything running WP since so many sites running WP are a) personal blogs w/o much relevance to anyone else; b) splogs; c) certainly not the high-powered sites google seems to favor. On the other hand, I have seen some nice WP sites on the top of some SERPS, but yet again, that doesn't prove anything, since they might as well be succeeding in spite of the penalty, or are just being aided by WP's ease of use.
What makes you think the metatags count for anything at all? Yes, there is a plugin that edits header and meta tag data but I can't remember the name.
potentially yes - on the basis that if I create a static website, I can edit the tags and they don't get send into the supplemental results
Google is only penalizing MFA's and Splogs (even though they created the monster) Word Press is the most respected and recognized SEO friendly blogging platform on the internet. What the SE's do, has nothing to do with blogs, it has to do with crappy content, and ad's only sites. I have a word press blog, and I am not being penalized...If anything I am getting a lot of love from Google. Let me rephrase that...I am getting tons of love from Google, and my blog is maturing a lot faster than any static websites I have optimized in the past.
I'm not sure where the "Google Penalizes Blogs" thing comes from. Google loves blogs more than any other SE out there. Now, as far as the original questions was asked about WP blogs being sent to Google's Supplemenatl rankings, I think most bloggers face that with some pages on their site. Heck, static html sites face that also! One problem with WP blogs ending up in G's Supp's is the WP themes. Not all designers are SEO savy. Most WP themes I see are too heavy on H1 and H2 tags. Some put the sidebar info ahead of the content. This is not good. Long story short, there could be a mountain of reasons some of your pages have ended up in G's Supp rankings. I find that my shorter content stories end up there quite a bit. It's my authority articles that stick. Also, if all your meta tags on every post page is the same it'll help in getting you into the Supp rankings. Use a Plugin that will take your tags and insert them as Meta Keywords and a Plugin that uses the first one or two sentences of your post as the Meta Descriptions. Yes Vern, Meta Keywords and Descriptions are still important in SEO. Also, just because your articles are ending up in G's Supp rankings, doesn't mean they'll always be there. Someone recently stated that G's Supp rankings are like forced work camps for weak post pages. (I can't remember who, I read too many blogs!) Link to these pages internally, have friends link to them externally, update the content on them and use a good robots.txt. Good Luck, TxDon
Here's a plugin to make your page title tags different from your post h1 tags, could be useful to you. http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/
Yes, but it's still a blogging platform. My question is, is it wise to use it for something other than blogs? I forget which update it was, but about four years ago, blogs exploded in the SERPs, taking up half or more of many searches. Google et al tweaked the algos to lower the number of blogs. That is a fact. My question is, was this likely done via shifting how link popularity is calculated, or was this done at least in part by checking whether a site has RSS or is running on a blog platform?[/quote] My question is, would it have gotten even more love if it were not running WP, but another CMS that allowed you to do the same things but did not announce itself as a blog?
On the web, you really cannot quote anything from 4 years ago. 4 months ago is a stretch. Ok, I'll use my new blog as an example. Brand new domain, the blog itself is 76 days old. Traffic is around 250 uniques a day with 3200 page views a day, and growing. I am ranked number one for 1 key phrase, and ranked on the first page for a couple of others. DMOZ, and Answers.com listed. Over 8,000 pages indexed into Google, and 1400 in bound links. 556 links from Google, and over 700 from Google images. Predicted PR on the next update is 4. Alexa Rank (even though it means nothing to me) is under 490,000. 76 Days.....Does it look like I'm being penalized? <edited> People use Word Press blogs for many different reasons, and yes as Content Management Systems. It is single handedly the best platform for SEO on the web. The question about links and RSS feeds, yes they have figured that little scam out and those type of "Splogs" don't get any love. It is getting very close to either create something of some use, using your own talent, or get to the back of the SERP's. Would I have gotten more love if it were not a Word Press blog? Hell no! I would be so far in the sandbox, with no visitors, no rankings, no traffic, no subscribers, no money, nothing. It is because it's a Word Press blog, and all of the social media opportunities that are available to blogs, that I have been able to hit the ground running.
here is a GREAT seo plugin for wordpress. lets you give each page a custom title and keywords as well as custom seo for the home page http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Hmans, Thanks for answering my concerns. That's quite a recommendation. I'll definitely try using WP for some non-blog sites.
monkey, To address your original concern, a few times it's happened to me that Google has put a site of mine entirely in supplemental on some data centers, though never on all the data centers. It was just a hiccup. So, have you checked how your site is doing on multiple data centers? Also, I still don't think that Google cares much about what's in the header area, with the exception of the title. I think if you wanted your content to appear fresher all at once, you could just add some text to the footer or the theme, or try one of the "related posts" plugins that will help shake things up a bit.
Even some of my associates that are professionals in this business and have bee around since before domains, (really), do not give the power of adding fresh, keyword, optimized content everyday, any respect. How can a static website, that keeps the same text, placed the same way compete with fresh daily content, without spending a crap load of money on links, traffic, additional domains, content writers, etc. Content is what drives traffic, and traffic is the king of the internet.
Hi, My experiences with Wordpress has been positive. I started off a few months ago with about 600 uniques a day. It has since doubled to more than 1200 uniqes a day (and growing) with the help from an SEO consultant that I work with, as well as my own growth in knowledge about the Internet. We do not use any tricks. Just a better understanding of how to develop a blog and makes use of Wordpress' capabilities. The domain is no where near where I would like it to be, but I have found the ease of tuning and experimenting with Wordpress to be an asset. If you would like. my SEO consultant is going to highlight some of the things he did on this blog entry: Search Engine Optimization Tips 4 WordPress Blogs Edit Link Hope this helps, Rich
supplemental results could be because it's possible to reach an individual post or page via various URL’s. for example site.com/page1 and site.com/page1/ Google frowns on this. If this is the case then you should install the permalink redirect plugin More info found here http://www.pluginplace.com/2007/06/13/permalink-redirect-plugin-install/