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.
Is Wix still terrible for SEO?
-
In Australia, I hear it over and over again that Wix is literally the worst site builder you can use due to it's poor site build for SEO. Has anyone here got some tangible reasons for why this is? As I am constantly getting asked this by clients who are using Wix and want me to help with their SEO.
-
There are many famous and top-quality platforms available for e-commerce like Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento, etc. Learn more about it.
-
Even though our agency is representing the Wix SEO Haters, we must admit that they have made a ton of improvements.
Yes, historically, they were awful and often wouldn't even appear in SERPs.
Now, the issues they still face are the following:
- Poor page speed
- Non-customizable sitemap or robots.txt file
- Lack of structured data capabilities
- Not a ton of advanced SEO capabilities in the Wix SEO Wiz tool.
But, despite all of that, John Mueller from Google has said websites are websites for Google.
So, while it's not the ideal platform, it's a viable option for small businesses or freelancers with limited budget. However, I'd always recommend using a more advanced platform, such as WordPress.
-
It is possible to customize product urls, meta titles and meta descriptions. Seo settings for product page
-
The same content will get the exact same ranking regardless of the CMS that produced it.
John Mueller said websites are websites for Google
on the post that @Casey mentioned.
For most sites out there, the available SEO settings on Wix are enough and switching a CMS will not boost their rankings. There are, for sure, sites that require a different CMS than Wix but SEO is rarely the reason for it.
-
I've got a Wix site that I'm pretty happy with. There have definitely been some frustrations, and it does seem like I've been missing out on some customization options that would help with SEO, but for certain key words my site is now showing up on Google in the top 3 of local results and page 1 of organic results. I'm admittedly pretty clueless regarding SEO, programming, and most of the stuff talked about on Moz, but I feel like Wix has been an easy and inexpensive way to get a good looking site that gets results.
-
Yes. Go for WordPress which is good for SEO. Wix is not good for SEO though they are trying to make it Search Engine Friendly to make their platform indexable.
-
The short answer is: Yes...but not "as" bad as previously. Should you choose it over Wordpress as an example? No, you should not.
Here's the long answer and an update of sorts:
The fixes...
- Wix uses "hashbangs" in their URL structure, which previously kept Google from indexing all the content but they fixed this in 2016.
- Wix previously suffered from an inability to customize page titles and add alt tags but it is my understanding that they've fixed these issues as well. And, Google's John Mueller says that Wix Websites do-in-fact "work fine" in search.
Regardless, in spite of the fixes, Wix still has what I feel are issues that render it inferior to WordPress. For instance;
- you can't customize canonical tags (or even add self-facing ones)
- you can't customize product URLs (relatively weak on all ecommerce stuff)
- you can't add customized Meta Description to product pages
- you also can't customize Page Titles for product pages
- Wix has a mobile editor, but that's just for smartphones, not tablets.
I find Wix especially unsuitable for use in ecommerce. Wix pulls SEO information for page titles, descriptions, etc. from the Product Information you initially enter and which cannot be edited at a later time. For me, that's probably the biggest reason that I prefer WordPress over Wix. You make a mistake, you are SCREWED down the road.
Bottom Line: If you can get the client to move to Wordpress, do it. It's just "better."
Hope that's helpful.
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
-
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting0 -
Tags - Good or bad for SEO
We are getting Moz errors for duplicate content because tag pages share the same blog posts. Is there any way to fix this? Are these errors bad for SEO, or can I simply disregard these and ignore them? We are also getting Moz errors for missing descriptions on tag pages. I am unsure how to fix these errors, as we do not actually have pages for these on our WordPress site where we are able to put in a description. I have heard that having tags can be good for SEO? (We don't mind having several links that show up when searching for us on google...) As far as the SEO goes, I am not sure what to do. Does anyone know the best strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | Christinaa0 -
Do WooCommerce product tags effect SEO?
I'm just curious if I need these product tags and if they impact in any way at all SEO? - whether that be positively or negatively. on1iRin
On-Page Optimization | | xdunningx0 -
Does blogging with a wysiwyg negatively affect SEO (vs. hand coding)?
Many bloggers use a wysiwyg editor to write posts. Are there any drawbacks to wysiwyg vs plain text? When I write blogs I prefer to hand code my text to be sure everything is optimized. My feeling is that wysiwyg leads to code bloat and generally fewer optimization opportunities. I have no real evidence. Is there any reason not to use the wysiwyg editor?
On-Page Optimization | | Jason-Rogers0 -
Is there a SEO penalty for multi links on same page going to same destination page?
Hi, Just a quick note. I hope you are able to assist. To cut a long story short, on the page below http://www.bookbluemountains.com.au/ -> Features Specials & Packages (middle column) we have 3 links per special going to the same page.
On-Page Optimization | | daveupton
1. Header is linked
2. Click on image link - currently with a no follow
3. 'More info' under the description paragraph is linked too - currently with a no follow Two arguments are as follows:
1. The reason we do not follow all 3 links is to reduce too many links which may appear spammy to Google. 2. Counter argument:
The point above has some validity, However, using no follow is basically telling the search engines that the webmaster “does not trust or doesn’t take responsibility” for what is behind the link, something you don’t want to do within your own website. There is no penalty as such for having too many links, the search engines will generally not worry after a certain number.. nothing that would concern this business though. I would suggest changing the no follow links a.s.a.p. Could you please advise thoughts. Many thanks Dave Upton [long signature removed by staff]0 -
How do Maximize WordPress with 2 SEO Plugins
I have 2 WordPress SEO Plugins, Yoast and All-in-One SEO. I have tried like heck to make them work together, but every time I crawl my site here, I get multiple error messages. My question is, how can I tweak the title settings to avoid having multiple meta desctiptions, titles etc.
On-Page Optimization | | TheSportsDaddy0 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0