Drop in position after switching to wordpress

[tony84]

EVERYTHING I read basically said Wordpress is the best it can help with positions, its easy to use blah blah blah.

I switched everything over and my pages have dropped - which is not surprising as I did not do a redirect, however even my homepage has dropped.

I have gone from around 4th/5th on google to around 9th-11th which seem to be the difference between getting enquiries and not.

I am reluctant to switch back (simple cms get-simple.com I think) for fear that it will drop from where it is to further in to oblivion. I do not have the old site, stupidly I just removed it so it would be a fresh install. Does anyone think it will be a good idea to go back?

The only thing I can think is that because there is so little code by comparison the split between code and text was massively in my favour over sites that are now above me?

 

[Xtm_Mike]

EVERYTHING I read basically said Wordpress is the best it can help with positions, its easy to use blah blah blah.

Well there is you first problem right there. Listening to people who think WordPress is the answer to everything. It's not. Did you move to WP for any other reason than people telling you it's good for SEO?

I'm no SEO expert but let me tell you:

- WordPress offers little to no SEO benefits at all, in fact out-of-box, it's pretty bad and will need manual coding or plugins such as Yoast SEO.

- WordPress is bloated, how many plugins have you installed? how fast was your website compared to how fast it is now? You will need caching functionality to keep that page speed consistently high.

- Are you using a custom theme, built yourself or off the shelf?

- Are you using the exact same page title, meta descriptions, h1 tags?

- I take it you have switched servers (new IP) you can experience a slight traffic drop in doing this, it may stabilise over the coming weeks and may improve your SEO.

Basically, if Wordpress is unoptimised it is fairly slow and wont offer any SEO benefits, you have been misinformed.

 

[fisicx]

EVERYTHING I read basically said Wordpress is the best it can help with positions, its easy to use blah blah blah.

It's not. It's content on the site and how you have configured everything that helps with positions. Wordpress is just a container for that content. And unless you set up WP correclty and have all the 301's properly set up you ranking will change. But get everything set up properly and you ranking will stay just as it was.

 

[Lucas Di Carlo]

EVERYTHING I read basically said Wordpress is the best it can help with positions, its easy to use blah blah blah.

I switched everything over and my pages have dropped - which is not surprising as I did not do a redirect, however even my homepage has dropped.

I have gone from around 4th/5th on google to around 9th-11th which seem to be the difference between getting enquiries and not.

I am reluctant to switch back (simple cms get-simple.com I think) for fear that it will drop from where it is to further in to oblivion. I do not have the old site, stupidly I just removed it so it would be a fresh install. Does anyone think it will be a good idea to go back?

The only thing I can think is that because there is so little code by comparison the split between code and text was massively in my favour over sites that are now above me?

Google takes the domain as a whole. So, if the pages that were generating the most traffic were pushed down your root domain will be affected. Wordpress is behind the top websites like BBC America, MTV News with millions of daily page views so, it should not be an issue. Also, the amount of code in your site is not a ranking factor for Google. Your content such as images, video, text, etc. is what matters for Google. You need captions, alt text for images, etc.

You may want to start taking action now and work on your broken links, set up 301 redirects. You can also check your site speed with PageSpeed Insights. Yes, website speed is one of the 200 ranking signals for Google. If you need help just come over to my site for a live chat. lucasdicarlo

 

[fisicx]

Also, the amount of code in your site is not a ranking factor for Google.

Yes it is.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

Yes it is.

Source?

I'm not aware of 'amount of code' being a ranking signal as long as the code and content is well written.

 

[fisicx]

OK, a slight caveat to this. Google likes render blocking code to be in the footer. This isn't easy with wordpress but the more scripts and stylesheets you load the less Google likes you. The fewer resources you load and the fewer external services you need the faster the site the better the UX and the happier Google will be.

So for example, if you have a font plugin that downloads from google you get a double whammy: a slap for the external resource and another for loading it in the header.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

OK, a slight caveat to this. Google likes render blocking code to be in the footer. This isn't easy with wordpress but the more scripts and stylesheets you load the less Google likes you. The fewer resources you load and the fewer external services you need the faster the site the better the UX and the happier Google will be.

So for example, if you have a font plugin that downloads from google you get a double whammy: a slap for the external resource and another for loading it in the header.

I was thinking in terms of physical content/html on the page.

An important factor to Google is page speed.. This actually bugs me because a website could seemingly load instantly but Google will still complain if you're loading too many external resources sending too many requests locally. Google even complains when using their own external resources such as Analytics.

All assets should be concatenated and minified, essentially leaving you with 1 CSS file and 1 JS file. Some external resources can't be helped but it is better to keep it to a minimum.

 

[fisicx]

I agree. Google complains about it's own files!

But code to content ratio has always been a ranking signal. I remember doing some tests a while back on a site with about 1000 lines of code before you got to <body>. And in the body there was great chunks of js and styling. After I cleaned everything out ranking improved dramatically. As a test I put everything back and ranking dropped again.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

As far as I am aware it is not a direct ranking signal but can contribute to other factors such as page speed. I wouldn't be too concerned about the ratio but more how the page as a whole contributes to other ranking signals. If page content is drowning in useless HTML this could indicate poor user experience, reduce index-ability and dramatically impact [google's perception of] page speed.

 

[UKSBD]

[google's perception of] page speed.

Amen to that.
Google Page Speed tools are guides only and give ridiculous results at times if you take them for what they say.

 

[websensejim]

Wordpress causing a rank drop? That would be a first. You need to look at other factors that have changed (your URLs, your internal link structure, redirect issues, and the page speed issues mentioned by other BMs). Wordpress or any other CMS is not the culprit for rank drops.

 

[UKcentric]

Google doesn't mind what engine compiles and delivers this content. It could be WordPress or it could be Simple CMS or anything else.

Google does care about page speed because they know that slow-loading sites get fewer pageviews and higher bounce rates. WordPress can be very slow.

There is a process/checklist to go through when changing CMS. This includes redirecting any URLs which have changed, ensuring the content is identical, alt tags, page titles, meta descriptions etc. You can Google things like "how to change CMS without losing search rankings" for the full details.

So I would go back and check that the above things have been done. If not, do them now and you will probably be back on top in a couple of weeks.

We have done many CMS switches to WordPress and as long as you follow the process you should be OK.

 

[justinaldridge]

The key question is....did you carry over all optimisation and content from the old home page to the new home page? If not then of course your rankings will suffer as a result.

 

[makeusvisible]

I think the thing to understand here is that Google does not look at website and ask 'is it Wordpress', 'is it static html', ' is it Joomla'. Google doesn't really care what platform you are running.

However, regardless of what platform you use, you should have certain elements and structures in place which allow you to adhere to the Google Guidelines. When people say 'Wordpress is good for seo', what they are really saying is "Wordpress allows you to relatively easily create an SEO friendly structure'.

It's extremely unlikely that just converting/switching your website to Wordpress would bring you ranking improvements unless you actively go out of your way to setup the Wordpress version of your site, better than your old site was configured.

For example..... if your old site failed to have ALT texts set for your landing pages images..... it would still not be correct on your new site, unless you go out of your way to setup ALT tags on your new site. The same can be said for other SEO elements such as your page titles, metas, urls etc etc etc.

The other thing to consider, is that switching to Wordpress is likely going to alter the URLs of your entire inner page structure. Which is going to have severe SEO implications (possibly including your homepage). So 301 redirects need thinking about.

 

[tony84]

Thanks for all the replies. I will take a look at some of the onpage stuff when I get a moment.

 

[aflat9]

Wordpress is not very good for SEO. You will have to work a bit harder on it. As someone else mentions, it messes with your URLs and internal linking structure.
switching back would just over complicate things. Stick with it for now.

 

[justinaldridge]

Wordpress is not very good for SEO. You will have to work a bit harder on it. As someone else mentions, it messes with your URLs and internal linking structure.

That is a very sweeping, general and inaccurate comment.

 

[aflat9]

I'll keep my opinions to myself then!

 

[tony84]

I notice I am not listed on find the best mortgage advisors...I feel a little offended, I should be number one on there

I have added an SEO plugin, I am not sure if its any good but will see how it goes over the coming days.

I have made some subtle changes and it has moved up to 7th, although that could have just happened with time now it has settled. I have signed up to webmasters tools so I can see my positions which is quite handy so hopefully next week I can see where I am before making a decision on what to do as I think I am getting to the top end of my knowledge now.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Well there you said it - you didn't put redirects in place.