What's so great about Thesis framework?
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I keep hearing about how great Thesis is for SEO. But when I look at the code, it doesn't look like anything special to me -- they followed the basics (proper title, header usage, etc.), pages load quickly, and they packaged things like title and meta control with the theme itself, but none of those things seem particularly special to me. Plenty of SEO plugins give you the same control over title & meta (and the best ones go beyond what Thesis offers) and it's easy to make sure the code is clean.
What am I missing?
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It is probably not as valuable to you because you know what to check for. You probably now that the results you get from WordPress with a typical theme and now SEO plugins is not ideal, so you know what to look for in an SEO plugin. I think there are a lot of positive feelings about Thesis because it is stylable and does a decent job with SEO matters.
I think there are some good SEO plugins that can make any WordPress site have solid SEO. Here is what I look for: Number one thing you need is something to rewrite those titles and descriptions, Number two: handle canonicalization, Number three noindex on archives (usually).
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