Using Wordpress as CMS for large Websites
-
Is Wordpress good enough to be used as a full fledge CMS for a large website. In particular, I'm talking about a news website. We have been online since 2002 but pretty soon we will have digitized our print newspaper archives of about 60 years. So, my question is, is it OK to use Wordpress for the entire website and if so what are some of the important things that need to be kept in mind.
Cheers!
-
Joomla can be very slow for large sites and drupal requires programmers. I would also recommend looking at the yoast wordpress seo plugin. I use it for all my sites and he has alot of info on how to optimise wordpress.
I am a regular reader of dawn, Good to see they are finally upgrading
-
add a +1 from me for wordpress. As mentioned above, there are several large sites using it effectively.
-
Thanks Barry,
The thing is we've already made the shift to WP but I was wondering thats an OK solution for a popular news website. As for Google news, we're amongst the favorites their when it comes to Pakistan news, as that's where we operate so that's not an issue. Thanks for giving the rest of the pointers!
Best,
Rishad.
-
Well, if the New York Times can use it...
Things to remember though:
- You'll need this - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-news-sitemap-generator/ - or similar.
If not (and there's no real reason not to) then think about your URL structure, you must use a non-date like number (minimum 3 digits) in the URL. Thus please take into account your permalink structures to include something like %post_id% or other identifier.
-
To be included in Google news you need at least 3 journalists (I think). As you're a newspaper I don't see that being a problem, but make your staff list easily found on the site.
-
Even as a real news site you may initially be rejected from Google news (I'm sure they do it just to weed out the people that don't really believe they should be there). So if rejected submit again
-
Speed. Cache everything - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/
-
Categorization. Make sure you have your site structure down and not just adding things haphazardly.
-
User roles and permissions. If journalists are going to be adding directly, make sure you've set up what they can and can't do.
-
Think hard about going for it. Movable Type is a very good option for news sites as well and is much more secure (this is a fact, I WP, don't jump on me for saying it - http://www.movabletype.com/blog/2008/06/movable-type-a-history-of-secu.html - Although WP is a bit better now :D). MT is updated far less regularly and is usually much more stable as well. So just consider your options.
-
Unfortunately, our techies are just as bad as our journalists. I guess we should stick with Wordpress then, I am aware of the scalibility issues but journos are most comfortable with the platform so can\t decide which way to go because our website is going to get larger and larger in the comng times!
-
Thanks for the resource brother...
-
I would definitely check out other CMS solutions such as Drupal, Joomla and MODx.
I love Wordpress for small sites (less than 1000 pages), but I think the CMS has some problems in terms of scalability - especially if you require lots of different templates - or even worse - multilingual variations.
If you have lots of developers, you obviously have the muscle for massive customizations, which makes it more likely to succeed.
Another criteria to keep in mind is the tech savyness of the journalists. If you aren't too comfortable with IT, Wordpress might be your best bet.
In sum, Wordpress will probably favor the journalists, while Drupal / Joomla / MODx will favor the tech team. Don't know who you want to help out the most
-
If you are looking to engage community I wholeheartedly recommend Buddy Press for Word Press. Plenty of useful plugins for it around.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?
I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory). I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible. My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure. I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse. I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example. I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2. Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time. (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts. 1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner! 🙂 Thank you in advance!
Web Design | | CalicoKitty20001 -
Anybody with a business site using Webflow CMS or another non-WordPress CMS/ sitebuilder?
If you have built your business site using Webflow CMS, kindly share your insights on how good their CMS is for SEO and how easy it is to rank a site. If you are not familiar with Webflow but have had a positive experience with another non-WordPress CMS/ sitebuilder, kindly share your opinions.
Web Design | | Blu_Ocean99.0 -
Migrate from HTML to Wordpress?
My website is currently HTML because in the past, I liked a more hands-on approach and liked to have a high level of control over my code. My organic search rankings are very good. I do have a blog on wordpress now. Despite all of this, I am considering moving to Word Press. The reason is that the fancier website techniques are very easy to achieve with a wordpress theme or plug-in. And some changes, such as menu, can be done at the high level versus the entire site. Auto-responsive is built within the themes, so anytime a new device comes out, they update it so I don't have to. And, I would like to be more tightly integrated with my blog. I am also getting to the points that I have no time to code and would like something a little simpler to maintain. BUT, I am scared to make the move and then completely lose my organic rankings. I know that I will have to 301 all of the pages. And I know that I will have to maintain all my current on-page SEO by paying close attention to the headers and whatnot. Do you all think that it is worth making the switch? Is there a good chance my organic rankings will drop?
Web Design | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Is it important to keep your website home index page simple to rank better?
My website http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/ markets holiday cottages and it's grown from my own singular cottage into a small letting agency and I used to rank at best number 3 for the short tailed keywords like Whitby holiday cottages with its drop-down to position 10 on Google.co.uk. So this week I was looking for a UK business to help me improve my rankings and the first thing they said was my home page is detrimental with the listing too many conflicting info with it advertising all 12 properties on it. They suggested a door entry page into the site keeping it simple but when I run it through the analysing tool here on Moz for "Whitby holiday cottages" as an example it came out looking okay. I do the usual things of title tags and meta descriptions for my keywords etc any suggestions or advice would be very welcome thank you Alan
Web Design | | WhitbyHolidayCottages0 -
Should Blog Category Archive URLs be Set to "No-Index" in Wordpress?
It appears that Google Webmaster Tools is listing about 120 blog archives URLs in Google Index>Index Status that should not be listed. Our site map contains 650 pages, but Google shows 860. Pages like: <colgroup><col width="464"></colgroup>
Web Design | | Kingalan1
| http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/category/manhattan-office-space | With Titles Like: <colgroup><col width="454"></colgroup>
| Manhattan Office Space Archives - Metro Manhattan Office Space | Are listed when in the Rogerbot crawl report for the site. How can we remove such pages from Google Webmaster Tools, Index Status? Our site map shows about 650 pages, yet Google show these extra pages. We would prefer that they not be indexed. Note that these pages do not appear when we run a site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com search. The site has suffered a drop in ranking since May and we feel it prudent to keep Google from indexing useless URLs. Before May 650 pages showed on the Webmaster Tools Index status, and suddenly in early June when we upgraded the site the index grew by about 175 pages. I suspect the 120 blog archives URLs may have something to do with it. How can we get them removed? Can we set them to "No-Index", or should the robot text be used to remove them? Or can some type of removal request be made to Google? My developers have been struggling with this issue since early June. The bloat on the site is about 175 URLs not on the site map. Is there any go to authority on this issue (it is apparently rather complicated) that can provide a definitive answer? Thanks!!
Alan0 -
Simple Wordpress Question regarding Footer Link
I have a client with a site that has the company that built their website's link in the footer. How can I remove this? I am pretty proficient with Wordpress but I am drawing a blank. The site is www.northatlantacleaning.com Thanks and I do extend the courtesy of awarding 'Best Answer' and thumbs up etc to good responses.
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
3 Brands, 3 Services, 3 Different Websites Right?
My client was told that having 1 website for 3 different brands/services is better than having 3 websites. I need your help to prove my value to a new client. This client has worked with Reach Local on PPC for some time and when they first got started the Reach Local Markering Consultant told this cleint that they needed to have one site for better SEO purposes. The client was told that Google ranks websites higher if they have more paid traffic going to them. I've been doing this for long enough to realize this does not help ranking, at least not enough to make a difference. Keep in mind this is for 3 different companies. One company does plumbing, another electrical and the last one does air conditioning. They also have 4 locations but only two locations have mutliple services opperating out of them. I understand these 2 location will not have there own Google+ Local / Places listing. Using the same address for 2 different business and expecting a first page ranking is just not possible. Right now when you visit the clients website you see a logo that rotates with a banner section that follows the logo rotation. First you see the AC Company and then the Plumbing etc. I see this as confusing to the end user and it is more work to get it ranked for SEO. I recommended that we build 3 speerate websites for each service and just list out all the addresses that the company services on the contact page. I would also design inside the footer links to the other services for branding purposes. Please share your thoughts on how you would handle this if you were doing the SEO for your own 3 different business services. I really appreicate any input/insight to this. Thank you so much in advance!!!!
Web Design | | 1SMG0 -
Website redesign testing environment
An external company is redesigning our website. They have a draft version active in a folder on their website to enable us to view it (example: www.externalcompanywebsite.com/ourwebsite/). There is no permission required to view the website, anyone with the url could just go there. I am not sure if they're using the robots.txt to block crawlers, or if they're blocking specific ip addresses. If the engines are allowed to crawl their website and they index pages of our draft website, does that affect our website negatively in the future once we host it on our domain?
Web Design | | jdossetti0