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.
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
-
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities.
Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing.
We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts.
My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain?
Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition?
Thank you in advance for the advice!
Patrick
-
Travis,
Thank you for this detailed response!
Your correct with the assumption that the site does not fit our needs. The problem was that the company we work with develops WP sites using their own theme which is a very raw form of WP.
Basically out of box the site does not have the functionality of any mainstream WP theme (no blog, backed limits a lot of control, a lot of custom CSS needed, etc.)
We thought maybe installing a second theme would put a little more control in our hands (at least for the blog), and this could be done in house.
After reading all the responses including yours it seems this unfortunately is not the way to go.
Thank you for the all the info, Patrick
-
Hello, the way you are viewing it is correct!
Basically what it comes down too is time and money it will take if we have the developer custom code the blog.
We are all fairly proficient with wordpress and could create the blog in a day on our own if a new theme was installed but after reading all the comments here it seems like working the blog into the one theme is the way to go.
Thank you for the response!
-
I second, or third?, the notion that you should more than likely only have a single WordPress installation. It definitely would increase the maintenance involved. Take everything you should do to maintain an installation, then double it. I'm certain everyone in your organization could do without that.
But if your organization is willing to endure the duplication of effort, there are other things to be concerned about. Not every theme is created equal. Some themes are faster than others, some are more secure than others and most themes will differ in every other way. So one theme could be a hindrance, while the other at least pulls it's weight.
In regard to the subdomain blog or subfolder blog question, there was a time in recent history where I would have said it didn't matter. Supposedly the link equity/juice flows just fine either way. However, someone in Moz Q&A made a very good point. To paraphrase EGOL; "Algorithms change, if you install your blog on a subfolder you will always be right."
I'm not sure when your company made the jump to WordPress, but WordPress has had the ability to display static pages for years. My first agency used to run a combination of CMS Made Simple and WordPress, I think it was due to the page handling issue. That was over six years ago. They later made the jump to full WordPress about five years ago.
So it sounds like the site isn't properly configured for your purposes. Here is how you should handle that, direct from the WordPress codex. From there you can setup your site's page structure through parent/child relationships. So if you're selling widgets, your structure may look like:
**Page Hierarchy **
Posts Hierarchy
site.com/blog-diggety/sweet-post
There are Pages and Posts. You bring the hierarchy. And speaking of which, should you change your site URL structure, you will definitely want to research 301 redirects.
To me, there's no question in my mind. You should stick with one WordPress install. Hopefully that helps.
-
Hi Patrick,
Will this hurt your SEO? Maybe, but not in the more traditional way. For example, there is no direct penalty that this would fall under, but what it could do is confuse the user experience. Just keep in mind that SEO isn't just about your SERP positions.
As a user on any site, you want to see consistency. If you change theme part way through, then this can devalue the level of trust in the site as it no longer looks like the original site.
I would stick with one theme and if you aren't happy with the current look and feel, change your whole site to match this.
From Google's perspective, no, this wouldn't cause a devalued ranking by installing an additional theme (unless SEO issues arise from the installation), but there are a whole host of reason why you shouldn't do it.
-Andy
-
You should go with one theme. Parts of the site that are controlled by the theme remain static, no matter what content you're working on whether it's a page or blog post. Those things include the header and footer. I don't see how you could have multiple conflicting versions of those files in a single installation. Those files are important to SEO.
If I were you, I'd customize the existing theme(s) to include the features/functions you're currently lacking rather than try to integrate two different themes and multiple plugins (never mind the additional maintenance Unikey mentioned). I'm assuming you're using an SEO plugin but even if that's not the case, you probably have others that you will want to continue to work seamlessly.
Someone else might have experience with this. I don't, meaning I've never tried to optimize a site that uses two simultaneously installed themes. Hopefully they'll chime in if they have a different opinion. I'll be interested to hear.
-
I am not sure of the seo implications, but I would do everything I could to keep 1 installation if I could. It just seems like it would make management a lot easier. I may not be following what you are asking though. It sounds like you have a site without a blog using 1 worpress theme and then you are wanting to add a blog using another wordpress theme, is that right?
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
-
Best SEO-friendly CMS platform?
I have been tasked with rebuilding a small e-commerce website using a CMS, but I'm not sure which one has the most SEO compatibility. One SEO company recommended Squarespace. Another warned me against Squarespace because of its limited SEO features and instead recommended Wordpress with the WooCommerce toolkit. I've also heard Drupal and Joomla mentioned. Are certain CMS platforms more SEO-friendly? If so, what are the best ones that can also handle e-commerce? Thanks!
Web Design | | businessimagesolutions1 -
Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL
Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag. Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time. I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's. I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools. My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site? Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag. Does Google ignore the hashtag? Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects? How serious is this? Thanks in advancing.
Web Design | | limited70 -
SEO strategy for UK / US websites
Hi, We currently have a UK-focused site on www.palmatin.com ; We're now targeting the North American market as well, but the contents of the site need to be different from UK. One option was to create another domain for the NA market but I assume it would be easier to rank with palmatin.com though. What would you suggest to do, if a company is targeting two different countries in the same language? thanks, jaan
Web Design | | JaanMSonberg0 -
Wordpress: Pages vs Posts vs Portfolio
Hi All, I'm looking to put pen to paper and design my main structual template for my website. I will be creating the new site in Wordpress. My understanding of Wordpress is broken into the Static Pages, Posts and Portfolio. Static PAGE
Web Design | | Mark_Ch
Static one off content.
No tags, categories or archived Posts
content entries, which is listed in reverse chronological order.
Update post entry to maintain overall freshness of your website.
tags, categories & archived Portfolio
????? Question What are the benefits of a portfolio page over Static Pages & Posts When creating feature rich articles should i use static pages, posts or portfolio. Thanks Mark0 -
Old site to new WordPress site - Client concerned about Yahoo Ranking
Hello, Back Story I have a client (law firm) who has a large .html website. He has been doing his own SEO for years and it shows. I think the only reason he reached out to a professional is because he got a huge penalty from Google last fall and fell very far down in rankings. Although, he still retains a #1 spot in Yahoo for his site for the keyword phrase he wants. I have been creating a new WordPress theme for the client and creating all new pages and updating the formatting/SEO. From the beginning I have told the client that when we delete the old site and install a new WordPress site (same domain name, but different page hierarchy) he will take a bump in the search engines until all the 301 redirects get sorted out. I told him I can't guarantee any time frame of how long the dip in SEO will last. Some sites bounce right back while others take longer. Last week, during a discussion, he tells me that if he loses his #1 ranking on Yahoo for any length of time he thinks he will go out of business. Needless to say I was a little taken back. When it comes to SEO I use best practice techniques, do my research, stay on top of trends but I never guarantee rankings when moving to a new site. I'm thinking of ways I can help elevate any type of huge SEO drop off and help the client. Here is what I was thinking of suggesting to the client and I would love some feedback. Main Question He has another domain he isn't doing anything with. It's pretty much his domain name with pc added. I was thinking about using that domain to create a simple 1-2 page WordPress website with brand new content (no duplicate content) aimed at attracting his keyword phrase. I would do as much SEO as I could with a 1-2 page site and give it a month or so to see if this smaller site can get into the top #10 in Yahoo, or higher. Then, when we move the site he will still have a website on the first page of Yahoo for his keyword phrase. I hope I explained it clearly 🙂 I would be open to any suggestions anyone may have. Thanks
Web Design | | Bill_K0 -
SEO and Server Connectivity....
Good Morning/Evening Mozzers, I arrive at work this morning with 5 emails from GWT for my separate domains reading, **"Googlebot can't access your site - **Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 39 errors while attempting to connect to your site. Your site's overall connection failure rate is 15.1%." I have passed this on to the Web Dev team to resolve ASAP. My Question, will server connectivity issues harm my rankings? Is there a danger if this continues that URL's could be de-indexed? Input would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | RobertChapman0 -
Site Activity, SEO, and behind login
I have a site that provides online education and as such, most of the user activity happens behind a login. This has me thinking about potential SEO impacts with a few questions that maybe someone could lend some light on: How important is activity (above just search activity) to the search engines Would it help to enter these pages, even though they're behind a login, into GA as we have with the front-end of the site Does a subdomain make a difference (right now we implement the course as a subdomain of the main site Lastly, as I was looking at compete.com, I am wondering how they get these use statistics?
Web Design | | uwaim20120 -
Best Wordpress Hosting
I've had a horrible experience with the security on wordpress hosting with GoDaddy. Someone recommended Blue Host as my next option. Does anyone have any experience with BlueHost and what other hosting companies would you recommend for wordpress hosting?
Web Design | | ChristineCadena0