By BeckSEO on
I'm currently working on a new site for a client who has limited knowledge of web back-ends. We are working on a new site to meet the important business goal of being search friendly. His current site is not at all. My experience with cms systems is that they typically create barriers to bots but I'd like to give my client power and control over maintaining his own site and therefore would like to find a cms system.
Can someone please comment on how the drupal system works as a cms when seo is a goal?
Thanks.
Comments
Excellent
Better than most other I would say. I have the pathauto module installed and google sitemap module.
I put my new website opentravelinfo online a short time ago. My google PR was almost instantly at 4 and my sitemap is being downloaded by google as soon as I put content online.
That means about half a day after I update my website google has the new pages in its index.
I am actually quite surprised by this.
Images get Alt tags automatically, the page header is updated nicely and the pathouto module really does a great job.
It is one of the main resons for me to stick to drupal.
Andre
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http://www.opentravelinfo.com
http://www.aguntherphotography.com
4 immediately!
Andre,
that's really good. I didn't know it's possible to get a page rank of 4 immediately. I thought you had to have other sites linked to you. Did you have other sites linking to you (maybe other sites you run)?
I assume you mean it's a new site built from scratch, not a site you migrated over.
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Drupal ecommerce, at www.drupalecommerce.com is a new site written using language that Drupal beginners and intermediate users can understand. Quick links to "Modules."
several things you can do
I have had my Drupal site up 2 months now, and the nodewords modules was one of the first I used, at the suggestion of a forum post response I received. It allows you to enter in HTML keywords when you enter in a story (node), and then when published, they appear in the metadata keywords in the html of the page.
I use the google sitemap module, and that helps a lot as well per your other response.
Be sure to turn on "Clean URL's" if you can in Administer -> Settings, the search engines follow clean URL's much better.
I believe this also turns on "URL Aliases" in Adminster, and you can set that up, or just by entering an alias for something when you add content.
For instance, the other day I had a lot of 404 requests for a old page on my site like /blog/archive/00002.shtml. So, I created a new story with content, and made the path alias /blog/archive/00002.shtml, and it works fine. I get even better SEO results then when the page was static now.
Keywords are useless
I don't believe this is of any use at all, as hardly any search engine (apart from teoma) bothers to use the "keywords" meta tag any more. See this for more:
http://lutrov.com/blog/35/
Yeah?
I tend to agree that meta tags are almost useless but not completely. I have them in some of my pages but as the article metions it should be related to your content.
I think it does not hurt to have a couple of them.
If your site is very content rich (like my travel site) you don't need meta tags at all since the search engine has plenty to go on.
If it does not have that much content (written content) like my photo site, I still think meta tags can be valueable.
In general:
Don't bother with SEO too much. Put a lot of unique content on your site and it will rank well. Make sure the search engine can read everything and follow every internal link (navigation menus).
Fancy Navigation Menus using Java Script or Flash Intros can be SEO Killers.
Photos should have alt tags (google images loves them ;-) ) and links should have relevant anchor text (e.g. don't use "click here" use something meaningful).
Also don't overuse good things (like internal links to anchor text) as too much of a good thing can be classified as search engine spamming resulting in punishment in the rankings.
Things to avoid:
Keyword stuffing
Invisible Text (same color as background) for Keywords
Too many internal links not visible to the user.
Doorway Pages
Meta Tag Stuffing
In the End the site with the best content will automatically get linked in Blogs and on other sites and show a good ranking.
Google is getting smart in figuring out what are rezprical links and what are unique links.
Andre
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http://www.opentravelinfo.com
http://www.aguntherphotography.com
Some good points
You make some excellent points, especially the tips on javascript menus, flash and css stupidity. Not to mention the criminality of keywords stuffing, doorway pages and link farming techniques.
As far as the keywords being related to the content; that's my entire point - the reason why they're useless is because it's too easy to get them wrong, which is exactly what a lot of low-life webmasters and dodgy SEO "experts" have done (on purpose) over the years.
I've had a look at both of your sites and I don't see you using the keywords meta-tag. Would you mind telling us which pages? I'd love to do a test.
Meta tags
Meta keywords are probably not important, but I add a few relevant ones anyway.
Meta description is useful for search engines because it is sometimes used as a text snippet on the search engine result pages.
they do work....
no matter what any article says - I can attest that if your keywords are in line with the content on your page, they work. Ever since I installed nodewords, and added keywords to my posts - search engine referrals have gone up. Nodes with keywords vs. nodes without, the ones with keywords rank higher.
That's just been my recent experience the last 3 months.
Eeps, I was relying on keywords.
Used correctly, keywords are good. I'm doing a site for the playschool. I can't put "preschool" and "daycare" on the main pages; it gets too filled with synonyms. But I'm sure parents out there will search for "MyCity, Preschool" and I want them to see us.
That camera article shows sites that abuse the keywords. Those sites ruin it for the rest of us. Sigh.
I'll use the keywords just in case.
In case?
In case of what exactly? In case some new engine comes along and decides to implement an algorithm which takes them into account?
I don't think that will ever happen again. The keywords meta-tag is as dead as disco. The reason is because it's so easy to abuse and that's precisely what's happened over the years, just as you mention.
Can you elaborate?
Can you explain what you mean by "if your keywords are in line with the content on your page, they work"?
Google does not use them at all. Teoma is the only engine (of any significance) to take the keyword meta tag into account but that only benefits Ask Jeeves/Ask.com and in any case has only a trivial following.
It's really worth reading this article as it clearly shows the results of some real testing, not just hearsay:
http://lutrov.com/blog/35/
For additional proof, read this article:
http://lutrov.com/blog/32/
Doubtfull
I am still not convinced. I migrated my site to Drupal a while back, from a static site. The static site had all kinds of meta tags including keywords that matched the content.
I did not bother to implement those in Drupal and my traffic is up too. It keeps growing slightly as it should. I have not noticed any dip whatsoever.
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http://www.opentravelinfo.com
http://www.aguntherphotography.com
Drupal and Search Engine Optimisation
This could help in your discussion. We have discussed some issues relating to SEO on:
http://drupal.org/node/20033
http://www.cmsproducer.com/search/node/seo+search+engine
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iDonny - Web CMS Development, Design, and Web Marketing Advice
All is good in the WWW
Unless any of you have actually seen the big threes search algorithms then I would not be so certain. All parts of a valid W3C web document are used, it is just that the method has become not only more clever but also more precise.
I’ve seen some engines go as far as relating a who is look up with a company’s background profile with a content relativity check plus many other angles that all relate in some way to each other.
Bottom line is this, if you use all that is available in the intended manner then you will see results. So to all the nay say‘ers, everything is important and there is no magic formula if you do not have a solid business plan for the world to find your website.
And yes I’m a webmaster and have been doing SEO work for over 6 years, it’s all good!
flavor of choice for all you newbies - http://searchenginewatch.com/
learning is power!
Almost everything
Except the keywords meta tag. I have proof that it's only used by Teoma, which represents under 2% of market share, which is useless.
Flavour of choice for all
you newbiesof us - http://searchenginewatch.com/Danny Sullivan seems to be saying the same thing, apart from my assertion that:
2% = useless.
Meta Tags are important
There are a lot of myths out there about meta tags.
The meta description must be different on every page for Google (or left out completely, but don't hard code them into the template). You can set the Nodewords Module to do this automatically. Also, the meta description allows you to customize the text snippet that is displayed on the SERPS (search engine results pages). It should be included for that reason.
I make a different combination of meta keywords on each page (when I can remember). They are much less important.
Make the content of the meta description and meta keywords relevant to the page.
one page guide for SEO
I've read these postings time and time again about drupal and SEO. I agree with most of the comments on this page, especially the ones about clean URL's and pathauto. However - if you want a one page guide on how to optimize a site for the search engines, including tidbits you can give your clients on writing good drupal search friendly content and copy - visit my drupal site:
http://www.smorgasbord.net/how_to_optimize_drupal_web_site_for_google_ya...
I wrote that page because I couldn't find all the information I wanted in one spot.
Drupal SEO
Drupal is very good for SEO if configured for it:
http://tips.webdesign10.com/basic-drupal-seo-on-site-optimization
Are Keywords Useless?
It is said Meta tags are important but how keywords are used is much more important. Keywords are a very important part of site optimization. They can be used in different ways. They can be included in the title, descriptions, text, alt text, images, folders can be named, titles of articles, anchor text while linking to other blogs etc. Keywords are still very important as they help us to identify what the entire website is all about. They should be properly scattered in the text keeping in mind the text to keyword ratio, keyword prominence, density, relativeness and position. Optimize pages with single or two or three keywords they will yield greater results.
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