Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should WordPress themes be hard coded for better SEO?
-
In the interests of making my site faster I have recently come across the suggestion of removing unwanted PHP from my WooThemes WordPress theme. The suggestion is to hard code the choices I have made in the WordPress template to reduce on database calls.
Has anyone actually done this to their WordPress theme before and seen any measurable results?
-
Hey Ben,
Thanks. Am using a Wootheme called Simplicity. I have just left the minify box unchecked in W3 Total Cache since this was causing the problem. The site speed seems to be ok though even with this disabled.
-
Hi Sofia,
Not a problem, glad I can offer my assistance.
What slider are you using? I might be able to solve that problem for you, I know I had to fiddle with the code of my theme a little to make total cache behave but they were minor changes.
-
Ben, thanks for the useful follow up. I will certainly check out spitecow. Have found W3 total cache speeds up my site quite a bit, only problem is its breaks the image slider for some reason so have some looking into to do.
-
To help measure results one way or another you could use http://loads.in to test how long it takes your page to load from different geographical locations. I think Chrome's developer tools has a similar thing as well.
If you're trying to speed up your site then I would recommend grouping images (icons etc) into an image sprite and use css background positioning to show the respective image. I found that implementing this into a theme resulted in great speed increases as you make a single HTTP request for a single image, as opposed to loading up several images on page load.
If you're not savvy enough with css image sprites I would recommend using www.spritecow.com to produce the correct background-positions for the images so you can add them into your css file.
-
I have used WooThemes in the past and personally I think some of their code and their modifications are a bit overkill, sure it makes things easier for users but its not really following the way WordPress does things (Creating folders in WP-Content to put file uploads from their admin panel for example).
In general terms I think its better to hard code references to public resources (CSS Links, JavaScript links etc in header.php). For better speed increases I would suggest having links to JQuery or MooTools in header.php and any other JavaScript files should be put in footer.php just above the closing body tag.
The benefit to this is that the core JavaScript framework (JQuery or MooTools) is loaded first, the page can then render on the screen whilst the last few JS files are downloaded and put to use.
It maty be worth using WP SuperCache or similar to cache your pages and allow browser gzip compression for quicker page loading.
I think WordPress in general makes too many database calls anyway, so where possible I think its acceptable to hard code links.
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
-
Move a Wordpress Site to HTTPS with Bluehost
HI Guys, do you think that the following guide is enoght to move a bluehost wordpress site to https in a seo best practive way? https://www.shoutmeloud.com/free-ssl-certificate-bluehost-hosting.html Basically their steps are: Install SSL on Bluehost panel Install Really Simple SSL Wp Plugin Edit Your .htacess File & Add The Code For HTTP To HTTPS Redirection Update All HTTP URLs In Database To HTTPS Using Search and Replace Plugin Use Broken Link Checker plugin & use its redirection module to find links to 3rd party sites with HTTP that should now be HTTPS. Last thing to do Submit your new HTTPS site to Google Search Console & submit your sitemap. Update your profile link on Google Analytics. Update your website links on social media profiles & anywhere else they exist. This step you can do in pieces in the coming days. Read this guide to learn more about HTTP to HTTPS migration & fixing mixed content. If you disabled Who.Is guard for your domain name, you can enable it now. Do you know a better practical guide for wordrpess? in term of usefull plugins to handle the migration? Tx to everyone!
Technical SEO | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
Why add .html to WordPress pages?
A site I may take over has a plugin that adds .html to the pages. I searched online but I’ve only found how to add it rather than why to add it. Is it needed? If I remove it, I’ll have to be careful with SEO / indexed pages and redirects. The site is running 3.x.x and 90% of the plugins have not been updated in over 5 years including this one. Before I update to 4.7.x, I am trying to understand the landscape (pros / cons) on why something could be used and if I need to find a suitable replacement for it.
Technical SEO | | acktivate2 -
SEO value of InDesign pages?
Hi there, my company is exploring creating an online magazine built with Adobe's InDesign toolset. If we proceeded with this, could we make these pages "as spiderable" as normal html/css webpages? Or are we limited to them being less spiderable, or not at all spiderable?
Technical SEO | | TheaterMania1 -
Removing Media from Wordpress
I've run the seomoz on page report and found an interesting issue. I'm using wordpress and it seems that every picture I add to my articles seem to be added as separate pages to the site. I'm having to go to each and every picture and creating a meta tag and description to it. I still get duplicate content issues with the same. On my Disqus system, I get the same pictures added just as a page or article would look like. What can I do to avoid this?
Technical SEO | | emasaa0 -
Does redesigning the website effects the SEO?
What are the precautions to be taken in redesigning the website ? do it effect on link building? I am planing to re design my website, most of the Keywords are already optimized by Google, and i have given many back links to it . After redesigning my website will it get effected? Kindly answer my question
Technical SEO | | PrasanthMohanachandran0 -
Sitefinity vs Wordpress
We're looking for a new CMS and out development company suggested Sitefinity. I've had great success with Wordpress. Is either system better. I love worpdress but have had no experience with Sitefinity. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | StandUpCubicles0 -
Iframes & SEO
I've got a client that wants a site with all content in iFrames. They saw another site they liked & asked if we could do it. Of course we can technically. How big a negative hit would they take with SEO? Is there anything we can do to mitigate it, such as redirects, etc? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0 -
Changing CMS, are there SEO effects?
We want to change our cms from typo3 to CMS made Simple. We have done this already for another site and it effected the rankings. Have you got experience with this? What factors are important for SEO to consider? Is it normal when you change from cms the rankings will drop?
Technical SEO | | PlusPort0