How does using a CMS (i.e. Wordpress/Drupal) affect backlinks and SEO?
-
So I need to build a website with over 100 pages in it. Elements of the design will probably be moved around and or tested so I need to use a CMS. It's pretty much a review site so while the content will remain static I'd like to employ A/B testing to mess with conversion rates. Wordpress has a plugin for that even.
So I'm just wondering, since CMS pages are pretty much created on spot and not retrieved from a library, how this affects backlinks and anchor text? How exactly does the external website point to yours if the URL is dynamically generated?
Or am I misunderstanding something? Please recommend any extra resources as well if you can.
-
Sorry, saw the follow-up, but I think the overall thread has you covered. The only real issue with CMS URLs is that you can sometimes have multiple versions pointing to the same page, and this creates duplicate content. There are plug-ins for WordPress that can help with that.
The only exception would be something like an AJAX-style URL, where the page content could change without the URL ever changing (Flash has the same issue, for example). You'll rarely see that in a standard CMS, though, and definitely not in WordPress.
-
Thank you very much CMC-SD, Jared and goodlegaladvice for all your help.
@CMC-SD: As promised, I stole your analogy (Now I realize it was an analogy and not a metaphor, I think) and I tried to explain CMS to my girlfriend who knows nothing about computers. Unfortunately it did not come out as elegantly as you put it and we ended up eating bison burgers instead.
-
Ditto to that Jared. Great explanation. And now I'm hungry.
-
Oh, okay, I definitely misunderstood. You're asking about the back-end rewriting process that makes a pretty URL point to the corresponding ugly URL which in turn points to the page. That's way back-end. Unlike a 301 redirect, it's invisible to the spider. The spider need never know that a URL like http://www.domain.com/?p=123 even exists. While it's crawling, it sees a link to http://www.domain.com/page1.html, follows the link, and sees the HTML for that page. That's all.
-
@CMS-SD: Great metaphor! I'm going to steal it But I already knew that about CMS's xD. In fact my confusion was about what follows from that... If the pages are created dynamically and not retrieved from the webserver itself, how do would a backlink even REFER it??
I actually found this SEO blog touching on the subject matter: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-rewrites-and-301-redirects-how-does-it-all-work
So, pretty much this is how it works: A page is linked through the URL that is randomly generated by a CMS, but the webserver rewrites the URL that points to the original URL. Pretty much the same thing. And google indexes that URL plus the html on the page. Is that about right? That is why I should not worry at all.
-
Thanks! That's what happens when a creative writing major learns php.
-
This is probably the most well constructed, and humorous explanation on this that I have ever read. Bravo.
-
No. What "indexing" means is creating a database of URLs and the HTML that those URLs point to. If your site has been "indexed," it means Google has discovered your URLs and taken note of the HTML that can be found at those URLs.
-
I think you are misunderstanding something, yes.
On a website with a CMS, the URL is not "dynamically generated." The page is dynamically generated. Here's what that means. Whenever you type http://www.domain.com/page1.html into your browser, you are telling your browser to go to that website and pull up the HTML that corresponds to that URL. URL stands for "uniform resource locator," meaning directions to the location of a resource. If you have an old-fashioned website, the URL points to an HTML file that you created, either by typing everything yourself of using a WYSIWYG editor. If you have a CMS, the URL essentially instructs your website to build the corresponding HTML page on the fly.
It's like ... okay, imagine that you walk into a bakery and ask for a chocolate chip cookie. They could either pull a pre-baked chocolate chip cookie off the shelf and hand it to you, or walk in the back and bake you one cookie from the ingredients in the kitchen. When we're talking about baked goods, option 1 is almost always better than option 2 because it's orders of magnitude faster and more efficient. The benefits that option 2 offers aren't worth the extra time and lost efficiency. But when we're talking about websites, that's no longer the case. The server can construct an HTML document almost instantaneously. Your browser gets the HTML just as fast as it would if it asked for a static HTML page.
In fact, your browser really has no idea that this is all happening. Here's another food metaphor. You walk into a fast food joint and order a hamburger. The cashier walks into the kitchen, and a minute later, walks out with your hamburger. Did the cashier pull the hamburger off a shelf of hamburgers that have been sitting under a hotlight for hours? Or did the cashier ask the cook to prepare a fresh hamburger just for you? Assuming the hamburger tastes great either way, you have no way of knowing. In this metaphor, the customer is the surfer, the cashier is the browser, and the kitchen is the server your website is hosted on. Either your server has a bunch of pre-made pages sitting around waiting for someone to "order" them, or your server has a clever program that makes the pages only when they're needed. That clever program, the CMS, is like the short-order cook.
The thing to remember is, the search engine spiders are customers, just like the surfer. They don't know what's going on in the kitchen. They don't care. They "typed in" a URL and got some HTML back. They now know that that URL produces that HTML. They remember that. When they see a link to that URL, they know it's pointing to that HTML.
Clear as mud?
-
Ahhh, so Google indexes URLs and not the pages themselves? D'oh.
-
"So I'm just wondering, since CMS pages are pretty much created on spot and not retrieved from a library, how this affects backlinks and anchor text? How exactly does the external website point to yours if the URL is dynamically generated?"
Firstly, different CMS's create pages differently. CMS just means content management, which means the platform just provides a gui for you to add content or make changes. If you are using WP and creating pages, then these pages wil be indexed as any other page, and links pointing to it would simply target the page's URL.
Wordpress uses permalinks and Drupal uses pathauto to redirect platform generated links into SEO friendly one. They use an internal redirect and the resulting URL is indexed in Google. Therefore, you simply treat the resulting URL as the "real" url, and external links to it work fine.
-
right no difference I took a whole site with statics and changed it over to a cms with all rewrites everything works great kept the urls the same though kept the .htm
-
I was under the impression that URL rewrites just change the way the URL is displayed on the browser but not the URL itself. I really need to learn more about the backend stuff.
So it would make no difference if the backlink contained an absolute path?
-
It works the same as a static page except its easy to manage your content....
You usually also use a url re-write agent that can change your urls to say what ever you want. In fact most of the web is now on a cms.
Backlinks, Anchor text is all the same....
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
-
Alt tag for SEO
What’s are best rules around alt tag images for tagging? is this still relevant for SEO purposes
Web Design | | aplnzoctober180 -
What is the best way to employ log-in to benefit in SEO?
Hi all, All SaaS companies have this log-in page as their top visited page in their websites and some times it helps and also hurts them. I've gone through some big SaaS companies websites and they handle the log-in page differently like on sub domain, on website page, some will directly link to their instance login without a page, etc...I wonder what is the best practice to host the log-in to make sure the more visits to log-in page don't hurt us but give us some boost. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
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 -
Above the Fold Content - Use of large images
Hi All, Our designers have come to the SEO team to ask if have a large image across the top of the page taking up a large majority of the above the fold real estate will impact our SEO. Our initial thoughts are no as long as we have an optimised H1 visibal to the user landing there which informs them what the page is about. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Web Design | | J_Sinclair1 -
Web Developments and Breakpoints for SEO
Google likes fast and clean pages. Pages load better when they are optimized for each platform. With the new Ultra HD resolutions and ultra phones, what is the optimal number of breakpoints for web page with images on them?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Question #1: Does Google index https:// pages? I thought they didn't because....
generally the difference between https:// and http:// is that the s (stands for secure I think) is usually reserved for payment pages, and other similar types of pages that search engines aren't supposed to index. (like any page where private data is stored) My site that all of my questions are revolving around is built with Volusion (i'm used to wordpress) and I keep finding problems like this one. The site was hardcoded to have all MENU internal links (which was 90% of our internal links) lead to **https://**www.example.com/example-page/ instead of **http://**www.example.com/example-page/ To double check that this was causing a loss in Link Juice. I jumped over to OSE. Sure enough, the internal links were not being indexed, only the links that were manually created and set to NOT include the httpS:// were being indexed. So if OSE wasn't counting the links, and based on the general ideology behind secure http access, that would infer that no link juice is being passed... Right?? Thanks for your time. Screens are available if necessary, but the OSE has already been updated since then and the new internal links ARE STILL NOT being indexed. The problem is.. is this a volusion problem? Should I switch to Wordpress? here's the site URL (please excuse the design, it's pretty ugly considering how basic volusion is compared to wordpress) http://www.uncommonthread.com/
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
SEO and Modal Windows
Hi all, My website has a Login and Join Us option on every page in the site. Each Login and Join Us window pops up as a modal window. In other words, the user must interact with it before they are taken somewhere else (whether they close it or fill it in). It has come to my attention that this is being counted as duplicate content. Is there any way around this? It's calling duplicate content on practically the whole website. Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Info12340