Can a CMS affect SEO?
-
As the title really, I run www.specialistpaintsonline.co.uk and 6 months ago when I first got it it had bad links which google had put a penalty against it so losts it value.
However the penalty was lift in Sept, the site corresponds to all guidelines and seo work has been done and constantly monitored.
the issue I have is sales and visits have not gone up, we are failing fast and running on 2 or 3 sales a month isn't enough to cover any sort of cost let alone wages.
hence my question can the cms have anything to do with it?
Im at a loss and go grey any help or advice would be great.
thanks in advance.
-
I want to say I agree with Tom I focused strictly on your CMS and as Tom said essentially you have been hurt by your lack of relevant root domains pointing to your site.
Unfortunately after penalty given with an excellent cleanup Google is a little more wary of everything you do. So when you try to earn these new links which will need to do to compete for specialist paints an extremely competitive keyword. Be extremely careful that you do not cross any boundaries.
Take a look at the information below as well I did quite a few scans on your site and hopefully that will be of some help to you.
Respectfully,
Thomas
-
to answer the 1st question. Of course a CMS can affect how website performs. Meaning some are built better than others. If you had a CMS that was to produce all flash content that would be a pretty bad CMS.
I honestly prefer WordPress it works beautifully with search engines as well as people. The important thing though is that you can create a website that is easy for the end user and accomplishes what they want because that's exactly what Google wants.
when I used a tool I use a lot from Internet marketing ninjas in order to scan your site for issues it was giving me a 408 error that error is
- "408 Request Timeout (Couldn't find the user in time)"
- you can see what I mean right here I attempted this 8 times.
I used a another tool screaming frog SEO spider I highly recommend this tool it is free for up to 500 pages though the Pro version gives you the ability to fix a lot of problems instantly.
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
Here the results
https://app.box.com/files/0/f/550482746/1/f_11967719472 crawl overview
https://app.box.com/s/nvyyszluy9mb9rhx1ms6 redirect chain check
https://app.box.com/files/0/f/550482746/1/f_11967725394 all links
I would doubt the CMS has anything to do with your issues. Based on using this tool below called feed the bot
http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/spider/test.php
I was able to crawl your site with no problems. That replicates googles ability to crawl a website. If there was an issue with your CMS blocking Google bot I would've picked it up there
It seems your CMS is custom-made I have never heard of this particular one however that does not mean it's bad. I would recommend using WordPress if you you build the site for any reason. It is very search engine friendly and has a extremely large pool of developers.
Use some of the tools found in this link to scan for other issues
aside from that I would guess that your prior penalty may have something to do with a drop or he could be the lack of content one your site. Overall you do not have a lot of content meeting over 200 or 300 words per page I would start by issuing another question regarding whatever you find to be off about your site. Or something more detailed about what exactly you suspect is a problem why you think it's your CMS? I would really love to hear some more info about this I hope the data I've provided is able to tell you that I do not believe it is your CMS that is harming you.
Download screaming frog and use it
sincerely,
Thomas
-
Hi there
Well yes, a CMS can have an effect on SEO performance. If the CMS makes elements on the page uncrawlable, or the website load very slowly, this could have an adverse effect on your performance. Similarly, if the CMS produces a lot of duplicate webpages, URL or content, which can often be a problem with e-commerce sites, that could lead to algorithmic Panda penalties.
However, looking at your homepage, the Googlebot sees this on the page - so it looks as though everything is fine with its crawl there. In addition, your site load speed appears to be good. I also can't find any obvious duplicate content or URL issues - the search function works well and each product listing looks to have good unique content, with no duplications of the pages (at least at very first glance).
So your CMS, at first glance, looks to be working really well. The issue that I see is that, as a result of your bad backlink cleanup, you have a very small amount of links pointing to your domain. Majestic SEO is reporting that you have gone from a peak of 9000 backlinks and 1000 root domains to just 69 backlinks and 25 root domains. That is a huge reduction in links. While being completely necessary, it essentially means that your off-site SEO is back to zero and so you need to earn more links. Now, it's about quality rather than quantity, but to give you a quick example: the top 5 results for "specialist paints" each have over 10,000 links to their domain.
You've done a great job with your onsite optimisation and an extremely thorough link removal process. What you're left with, however, is a site with very few links and so not a lot of power to help it increase its visibility in organic search. I would say that you need to replace the bad links you have had removed with strong, contextual and high-quality links in order to start performing well again.
I hope this helps.
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
-
Technical URL SEO question
Hi All, We sell a product on our site which is displayed in cubic metres, from an SEO perspective is it ok to have /3m³ in the URL or should I use 3m3. Thanks All
Technical SEO | | Redooo0 -
Does the use of a unicode character high up on page adversely affect SEO?
I work for a company in the travel industry and we are currently in the process of building out a 360-degree video landing page to inspire travel to our destination. There is some desire from individuals on my team to use the unicode degree symbol ( ° ) after 360 to ensure clarity. We currently have the ° symbol in the Page Title and H1 tag. Does the use of a unicode character adversely affect SEO? Our concern is that it is very unlikely that people are searching for 360-degree videos using the unicode symbol. We also have it fully written out as well. Just want to make sure we won't get dinged for this. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | smontunnas1 -
Mutiple domains with similar SEO
ok we have one main domain about our company which is about renting luxury and exotic cars. (PrestigeLuxuryRentals.com). We own other domains with similar keywords,meta,etc on the URL and SEO For example, we own domains like exoticcarrentalorlando/exoticcarrentaltampa, with same background and design as main site but, we have different content than main site to avoid duplicate. Keep in mind, all the other domain we own, all have same template with our companies name on it but, it doesnt have any content or link that pertains to main site. is this a problem?
Technical SEO | | prestigeluxuryrentals.com0 -
Update page for better SEO score?
Hi, Is it important to update a page sometimes to score better in SEO?
Technical SEO | | parfumerienl
Or if i make a page and never change it, it would be good enough.0 -
301 redirects and seo..
I bought a domain and it has nice traffic. It only has about 5 main pages in php When i got the site i switched to html because php was overkill. I did the 301 and google deleted the php files and replaced with html version when i check site:domain.com It has been about 7 days. I DID NOT use 301 for each of the 5 pages to go php to html instead is used this code RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | samerk
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com
RewriteRule (.) http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RedirectMatch 301 (.).php$ http://www.mydomain.com$1.html So basically if you load php it will load the html version. dog.php > dog.html Is this OKAY? or should it be done differently.... worried! Thanks !0 -
Does server affect indexing speeds?
A bit of a strange question this one: I have a domain which, when on my Dutch server, can get new blog posts indexed and ranking in less than 10 mins using the pubsubshubbub plugin. However, I moved the blog and domain to a UK dedicated server and continued to post. Days later none of these posts were indexed. I then moved the domain back to the Dutch server to test this, I posted in the blog and once again, indexed and ranking in 20 mins or so. To cut a long and tedious story short; In a bid to be closer to my customers I moved the domain to a UK VPS three days back. I posted but no posts are indexed. Anyone else experienced anything like this? Generally I don't move domains back and forward so much but wanted to test this out. The Ducth server is a 16 core 24gb Direct Admin dedicated, the two UK servers were both running Cpanel. I understand that it would be best to host as close to possible to the customers but the hardship of getting posts indexed in the UK is becoming a problem. Thanks, Carl
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl1 -
Which Wordpress Framework for Best SEO
Which wordpress framework would you use for SEO. From what I have had a look at: Thesis is good but you cannot use other SEO plugins with it such as yoast SEO as it is not compatible Genesis or woo framework are good and a plugin like yoast SEO works well with them. What are your thoughts?
Technical SEO | | VivaArturo1 -
Do Domain Extensions such as .com or .net affect SEO value?
In the beginning of SEO days, it was going around that .com is the best for SEO and that .net is not as good. Is there any truth to this, and what about .org or .edu? I always hear that .edu sites have high PR. Is there any rhyme or reason to this, or all they all equal? Thank you, Afshin Christian-Way.com
Technical SEO | | applesofgold0