Testing some stymiee (seo) myths

[Waraas]

Like I said in another thread post your tests here so we can review them.

I will take you up on this offer. I will test a few things on my blog, such as:

1. nofollow (some ppl think that this doesn't pass any weight)

2. keyword real estate
Im not sure on your stance about this, because you said that these backlinks are worthless and in the same post you said that you can also rank for longtailed searches with keyword real estate. So please explain what you want me to test on this, such as helping rank? Or passing weight? etc..

3. Google liking Wordpress
Me and you seem to have a difference perspective on this, you think google doesn't like any cms more than the other, I think they do. So I will test this compared to a custom made site and see which one ranks better.


I am talking with a few other people about the rules, but please state some rules and guidelines you would like me to follow on this thread,

We can also discuss it here of course.

[rcj662]

This is just for google or yahoo also. I do not think no follow will not help in google at all also.

I think the best thing to test is Serp for keywords you choose.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by rcj662

This is just for google or yahoo also.

Google

[stymiee]

Wait a minute, I thought you did the experiments already. That's what you said in this thread. So did you do them or not?

[c2uk]

Originally Posted by Waraas

[...]

3. Google liking Wordpress
Me and you seem to have a difference perspective on this, you think google doesn't like any cms more than the other, I think they do. So I will test this compared to a custom made site and see which one ranks better.


I am talking with a few other people about the rules, but please state some rules and guidelines you would like me to follow on this thread,

We can also discuss it here of course.

Make sure that your custom made site outputs exactly the same code as wordpress does, except for

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

Otherwise you don't prove anything except that wordpress is great at SEO out of the box.

[felgall]

Surely if the search engines give any preference to WordPress then just adding the following code to any web page should result in a huge boost in its ranking regardless of how the rest of the page is coded.

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

Anything else is due to the page content and not due to having used WordPress.

[c2uk]

Originally Posted by felgall

Surely if the search engines give any preference to WordPress then just adding the following code to any web page should result in a huge boost in its ranking regardless of how the rest of the page is coded.

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

Anything else is due to the page content and not due to having used WordPress.

You are right, and this* should be also included in Waraas' experiment. And don't cheat on your experiment, i.e. only do heavy link promotion/whatever for one of these experiment sites. Looking forward to your results.

* A badly coded page with the Wordpress meta identifier.

[JJMcClure]

Originally Posted by felgall

Surely if the search engines give any preference to WordPress then just adding the following code to any web page should result in a huge boost in its ranking regardless of how the rest of the page is coded.

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

Anything else is due to the page content and not due to having used WordPress.

Surely just saying it's wordpress isn't going to affect anything. It has to be something to do with the way that wordpress code is structured that Google would like more.

What you're saying doesn't prove him wrong.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by stymiee

Wait a minute, I thought you did the experiments already. That's what you said in this thread. So did you do them or not?

I have for myself, but this is public


Also about the meta tag:

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

I will be using a default wordpress site with the default theme and comparing it to a custom made cms with the same exact linking structure. More info on my blog later tonight...

happy holidays everyone

[felgall]

Originally Posted by JJMcClure

Surely just saying it's wordpress isn't going to affect anything. It has to be something to do with the way that wordpress code is structured that Google would like more.

What you're saying doesn't prove him wrong.

WordPress structures the output as HTML and so does every other script and web editor in existance. The only thing that is unique to the way WordPress structures its output is the meta tag identifying it as having been generated from WordPress. Without that tag there are hundreds of other ways that the identical content could have been produced and therefore the result is NOT unique to Wordpress.

[c2uk]

Stephen, you are right that Worpress outputs html but the key is how the html is constructed (and that is out of the box constructed), and how the site is structured (links, categories, etc.pp), as well as some other nice stuff.

Besides, this isn't about whether Wordpress does anything unique, it's about whether Wordpress is good for SEO compared to most of the other applications out there.

And besides, that meta tag is not unique (remember it's still html!) to wordpress. Anybody can use it and if there really was some truth to what you guys are telling, anybody would use it. So, just like the html within the body is in your minds not unique to wordpress, so isn't the html within the head (=the meta tag identifier that you guys seem to think it's a wordpress unique thing).

But believe what you want, if that makes you happy. It doesn't seem like there is any logical argument that can change your mind anyway, much like another topic I can think of.

[Waraas]

You guys also forget that wordpress pings after every blog post is published. I think that is a big key in helping wordpress sites rank better. But we will see in my tests ehh?

[BPartch]

Originally Posted by c2uk

And besides, that meta tag is not unique (remember it's still html!) to wordpress. Anybody can use it and if there really was some truth to what you guys are telling, anybody would use it. So, just like the html within the body is in your minds not unique to wordpress, so isn't the html within the head (=the meta tag identifier that you guys seem to think it's a wordpress unique thing).

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

The Wordpress 2.3 part is what makes it unique, not the meta tag itself.

[BPartch]

Originally Posted by Waraas

You guys also forget that wordpress pings after every blog post is published. I think that is a big key in helping wordpress sites rank better. But we will see in my tests ehh?

I think any site can be set up to ping, pingomatic? Is your point that WP is good for SEO because it has certain features and sends out pings, or are you saying that WP is better just because google likes it better?

[Waraas]

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

Come on everyone google is smarter than this. Its not just the meta tag, its the whole structure and how it performs, that is why its a better CMS.

Johnny Gulag

here are my exact quotes:

google loves wordpress! They will eat that up all day long!

in my tests they do, wordpress and blogger.

What im saying is google likes wordpress, they will eat it up all day long Im not saying that because of the meta tag, im saying because of the structure, pings, etc.

All I have to do in my tests is see if the wordpress cms will outrank another cms for the same term. If wordpress does than that means stymiee is wrong about google not liking wordpress over any other cms.

Edit, what cms do you guys want me to compare to?

[BPartch]

Originally Posted by Waraas

Come on everyone google is smarter than this. Its not just the meta tag, its the whole structure and how it performs, that is why its a better CMS.

Johnny Gulag

here are my exact quotes:





What im saying is google likes wordpress, they will eat it up all day long Im not saying that because of the meta tag, im saying because of the structure, pings, etc.

All I have to do in my tests is see if the wordpress cms will outrank another cms for the same term. If wordpress does than that means stymiee is wrong about google not liking wordpress over any other cms.

Edit, what cms do you guys want me to compare to?

If google is too smart to read that meta tags content value, how can it tell that WP is even being used?

What if I just copy the HTML output from a WP site (remove that tag) and then publish that as a .html file, then ping pingomatic manually?

Maybe Google just likes any site that uses somewhat clean .html and sends pingomatic a signal, and not WP specifically?

These might just be features WP offers that are good for SEO, since the HTML output is based on the theme files and has little to do with the core files that actually power the backend plus every theme is different and few really use semantic HTML anyway.

How do you explain sites that use Movable Type(a good CMS to test against) and rank well?

[water2filter]

What I thinks is

Wordpress is very SEO friendly, and It have very good constructure,and it can make goods and other SEs know their content in quick ways. This is the most important for one site. and Wordpress can make this perfect.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by Johnny Gulag

What if I just copy the HTML output from a WP site (remove that tag) and then publish that as a .html file, then ping pingomatic manually?

What I actually do is take out that meta tag anyways, because hackers can see what version you are using and then hack your wp site.

Johnny... feel free to do some tests of your own like what you said above, no body is stopping you.

[BPartch]

Originally Posted by Waraas

What I actually do is take out that meta tag anyways, because hackers can see what version you are using and then hack your wp site.

If you remove it, how will google know you are using WP, so they can like your site better?

Originally Posted by Waraas

Johnny... feel free to do some tests of your own like what you said above, no body is stopping you.

If I really cared I might do it, but alas I don't. I am just responding to your challenge to prove Stymiee (and all the others that do not think Google cares if you use WP) wrong.

[c2uk]

Originally Posted by Johnny Gulag

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

The Wordpress 2.3 part is what makes it unique, not the meta tag itself.

Again how is this unique? I can use Wordpress 2.3 in there just as well. Nobody could prevent me from doing this. So, no it's not unique, the fact is just nobody else does it because there is no added benefit to it.

You guys keep arguing that Google knows somehow that wordpress is in use and that whenever wordpress is in use, the site gets better rankings just based on the fact that wordpress is in use - if that was true, then tell me how Google knows that Wordpress is in use and why it's not possible to replicate this same behaviour.

[c2uk]

Originally Posted by Waraas

Come on everyone google is smarter than this. Its not just the meta tag, its the whole structure and how it performs, that is why its a better CMS.

Johnny Gulag

here are my exact quotes:





What im saying is google likes wordpress, they will eat it up all day long Im not saying that because of the meta tag, im saying because of the structure, pings, etc.

All I have to do in my tests is see if the wordpress cms will outrank another cms for the same term. If wordpress does than that means stymiee is wrong about google not liking wordpress over any other cms.

Edit, what cms do you guys want me to compare to?

You kept saying that even if you copy Wordpress output and structure exactly with something of your own, Google would still prefer Wordpress, just because it's Wordpress and not a custom thing of your own.

[Waraas]

Originally Posted by c2uk

You kept saying that even if you copy Wordpress output and structure exactly with something of your own, Google would still prefer Wordpress, just because it's Wordpress and not a custom thing of your own.

Its the whole CMS that google likes. Wordpress does a great job with the onsite SEO. They also ping pingomatic automatically after every post. I have made websites with my custom CMS and cutephp.com, and wordpress, and crappy joomla. Wordpress out performed them all.

Im not saying just because its the name brand "wordpress", im saying that the cms wordpress outperforms all the ones I have tryed and its a great choice for seo.

hence the "google will eat that up all day".

I use wordpress as a rolling sitemap for my longtailed keywords within my blackhat network (tell me if im loosing you guys here ) because of how easy it is to set up and how well google likes the cms. Its the most efficient way.

I am not saying that because google likes "wordpress" they trust the websites made by the cms more. That is silly and you guys made that up.

So there, I publicly made it clear what I said, so now can we please stop arguing over what I said so we can do these tests to see if google loves wordpress.

also, what wordpress do you want me to compare it too?
custom? joomba (crappy)? phpcute? dupla (whatever its called)? blogger (my second fav)?

You guys tell me so I can get this started...

[c2uk]

In which case you agree to what stymiee, and others in the other thread, said all along:

Originally Posted by stymiee

2) Wordpress is fairly well optimized out of the box. That will give it an advantage over other unoptimized software but it doesn't mean Google favors it. Good results with Wordpress is not due to an arbitrary bonus. It's due to well written software. There are no arbitrary bonuses in search.

[Waraas]

I agree with him there, but Im talking about this:

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

But Google doesn't love it over any other system though.

And the tests will see if google does or doesn't like it over any other cms.

So now what cms do you want me to compare wp too? for the 4th time..

[c2uk]

1. That wasn't stymiee, that was Dan Schulz who said this. So which stymiee myths do you want to disprove with your tests?
2. What Dan said is basically the same thing that stymiee said in my quote, just simpler and in different words. While I see why it might be understood differently when taken out of context of the whole thread.