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Went Hot: October 27, 2008 - 4:34 am
Posted By: mrconn 250 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.garryconn.com)
Category: Google Searching
Ironically, after allowing Google to track my web history, doing the same search logged into iGoogle, one would think that the results would be more "personalized" based off my previous browsing history and also due to the fact that visiting WordPress.org is one of my top most visited sites while logged in.
To no avail, the SERP still included three instances of Google with no listing of WordPress, TypePad or any other alternative blog publishing software. To further my research, I searched for the term: create a blog, and found that three of the top ten results show Blogger.com and once again, no instance of WordPress.
What are your thoughts about this? Does Google hate WordPress and other blog platforms? Is this a way of Google attempting to lessen the number of new bloggers from using more powerful platforms which in return make Google's job controlling them more difficult? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
49 Comments
Comments
I guess Wordpress hasn't done a good job optimizing. I'm not sure why Google wouldn't like Wordpress because many Wordpress users are also Adsense users and that makes money for Google.
I don't really think that WordPress cares all that much in my opinion. I mean they are already the biggest platform out there and the most used. They run more by word of mouth then having a link on the front page of Google for the service that they provide.
Plus the fact that most people leave their plug in the footer of their blogs.....people can always find out that way as well.
TypePad I have heard of as well, however I remember hearing it isn't free? Why on earth somebody would use that when WordPress is 100% free is beyond me.
Plus, if I was searching for a blogging platform I wouldn't search for blog. Blog is too general, encompasses too wide of an audience and doesn't express what WordPress really is. To me WordPress is a blogging platform not necessarily a blog. A blog is something that somebody writes in and creates content for, WordPress provides that as a service.
Having a quick scan on ANY google result will show that they favour thier own services and PAID services, free and opensource services homepages rank preety low compared to paid alternatives and sites reviewing said opensource, possibly as mooted due to less SEO basis to promote thier buisness.
Commercial aspects would try to maximise it while free services wouldn't.
This combination of own service and money making service ranking higher then wordpress could be a reason for its low ranking but you never know.
Very interesting observation Gary. I don't know if they specifically have it out for these other platforms and are "spiking the punch" so to speak, in regards to what comes back for those search queries.
I also agree with Jarret that Wordpress really doesn't care, it still remains king for anyone serious about blogging, and eventually you will run into them in the blogsphere if you're at it for any amount of time.
Does Google pay fake users to comment? All the 4 above are completely new.
As long as you observe using the keywords you want to show up in Google in both the Title and Body of your Blog - it "appears" to get indexed. There are several other factors - but that's a great start.
If WordPress isn't getting love now - I feel it will more and more as time goes on because it's becoming the platform of choice for Blogging.
@ onreact,
The above comments are from my followers whom I have referred over to Sphinn. I asked them to come here and read the article and vote / comment accordingly. Also, I have encouraged them to follow this community more closely as I personally feel that Sphinn is an amazing network for learning more about SEO and SEM.
In essence, I am making efforts towards helping the Sphinn community grow by using my resources to send people and traffic to it. I do appreciate your concern however, but what you said is clearly not the case.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
That is rather strange. I find it difficult to believe Google would do something like that, but if the SERPs are behaving as you say, then what else could be the reason?
Since becoming a publicly traded enterprise Google seems to be more inclined to think about growing its business and income and perhaps is a little less concerned about "doing no evil" than it used to be.
To be fair the pressures of being a public company would tempt any firm to put its own interests first. Wordpress probably doesn't care about being slighted in the SERPs as they provide their services for free anyhow and don't have to be concerned about stockholders.
They obviously don't hate those blogs since they love to show wordpress blog posts in the SERPs.
Hey Garry. Nice post -- and thanks for promoting Sphinn. This is a great resource for your readers.
My personal opinion is that while Google cannot afford to be "caught cheating," it may be true that blogger blogs and people associated with blogger "accidentially" get a subtle advantage because SEO algo details "leak' into the Blogger software.
Regards,
Mark
I'd agree with @bankman - I'd doubt WordPress are all that interested/good at SEO. Their only foray in that direction seems to be to create a few thousand doorway spam pages ;) All the major search engines have been hiring SEOs for a while now.
And welcome to Sphinn Garry/Bankman/Jarret/Donace/NormalJoe
WordPress optimizes for both blog and "free blog". For "free blog" it's #2 behind Google. I wonder why it's not included for blog, not at all.
Good point Tad. That is a bit odd. They appear for "free blog", "blog tool" and "publishing platform" but not at all for "blog" on either of their major sites.
Looks like they have been removed from that keyword SERPs - question is why?
@ Jill, I'm with you on this one. Wordpress.org as a site might not be too well optimised at all, but the sites/blogs which Wordpress helps to create certainly can rank very well. That I'm sure of.
Wordpress comes up on first page for term 'blogging', 'blog tool', etc. So I don't think this is anything intentional by Google. I think there is just more competition for the word 'blog' and so G's algorthims just have a lot more options for the first page and some how deem these other listings more relevent.
It's easier to rank for multiple word phrases than single competitive phrases - Not really amazing or a big deal.
If a lot of people are linking to Wordpress for "Wordpress" rather than "Wordpress blogs" - exactly as happens in the wild - then this is precisely what you'd expect.
It's really just a variation of the old "search engine" chestnut - ie, search for "search engine" on Google and Google does not rank well - not least because people link to "Google" not "Google search engine".
2c.
I don't agree. The domain authority and title should get it included *somewhere* within the first 100 pages. Neither the org or the com show up in those keyword SERPs at all. Lack of keywords in the IBL would prevent it competing against better targeted sites - but it would still make an appearance?
Compare what they are up against at page 90 - although maybe Google does just rank every single blogspot domain above it and Wordpress is lurking around the 200'000 mark ;)
We know that Google can slap a site for one particular keyword. The site can still rank fine for other SERPs. Are we sure this isn't the case here?
@iBrian
Ok but Google is still on page 5 for that term. And that is without having the keyword phrase on their page or in their title.
Wordpress has it on both their com and org sites in the title and content with a PR8/9 and can't appear in the top 1000 results. That surprises me. Not ranking well is one thing - not ranking *at all* is another.
BTW Wordpress.com ranks #5 for "blog" in Yahoo. They also rank #9 in Google for "blogs" - plural.
I've been a long-time supporter of using Blogger within a domain, and one of the big reasons was that I felt it was given preferential treatment over other blogs in search results. The hard evidence is largely anecdotal and hard to reproduce, but some clues are hard to ignore.
Look back at the TCP/IP Anniversary artificial promotion and you'll notice most of the blogs that went to the top were blogspot hosted.
I literally made the move to wordpress on my personal blog yesterday because I wanted the functionality, but when SEO is a high priority I still use blogger.
I don't think Google buries other comapnies on purpose... although I may be wrong! Maybe it's just a case of bad SEO by wordpress..... :)
It wasnt too long ago Matt Cutts came here and said "we love blogs I promise" so google hating blogs is way off the mark. We use wordpress and rank just fine !
I think we maybe going a little off the point here. The issue is why neither of the two WordPress sites (com/org) rank for the keyword phrase "blog"?
Perhaps not! LOL
If that were to happen majority of the Google index would have been washed out.
I doubt Google has any issues with WordPress or any other blog platforms. I think "blog" is a really generic term -- there isn't enough information given to know what a person is searching for. A search for "blog" is a search for anything related to a blog not necessarily blog software. WordPress ranks for many blog related terms "blog software", "blog host", "blog hosting", "blog platform", "blog publishing", "blog tool", etc. Those terms are more targeted and therefore better ranking. If I were WordPress I'd be good with the terms it ranks for, because it is more targeted and would convert best.
I think the most scientific way to putting away this question is to identicially SEO optimize a Word Press "post" and a hand coded html webiste for a long tail keyword phrase and see where they end up.
Do you mean wordpress.com? When I have safe search on, it's not there. When I turn off filtering, wordpress.com is #34 @ 100 per page.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awordpress.com+porn&&num=100
Wordpress.com also recently put nofollow on all the tags pages that lead to individual blogs (subdomains). Not sure if that is related.
Nick, I'm seeing Wordpress.com on around page 5 for "blogs", but very little presence for "blog". So, indeed, the lack of domain authority is surprising.
A few presumptions here, though:
- I think a search will show most people aren't linking to Wordpress with the word "blog".
- There's no real attempt to push the keyword blog on the internal architecture of Wordpress sites
- If most links to Wordpress are via footer links, wouldn't that give Wordpress an unnatural profile?
- Hopefully I'm not the only one to see a reduction in how page title is weighted over this year
So I guess my potentially superficial presumption would be that Wordpress isn't ranking for "blog" or "blogs" because while it is a big popular site, typically of big populer sites it's not actually very well SEO'ed for these core keywords? :)
[Waits to get lynched!]
@iBrian
I ran it through one of our tools and it doesn't seem to be present in the results available (96 pages). So unless that is wrong I'd suggest it has "no" presence :)
For your presumptions:
- Are many people linking to it with the word "blogs"?
- No, but it is mentioned in both the title and content
- True but still surprising that WordPress ranks in Yahoo for "blog" (and Google for "blogs")
I agree it's isn't well SEO'ed but I would still expect it to make an appearance *somewhere* in the "blog" SERPs. Once you get past page 80 it's just "blogspot" domains. Maybe this just points to the importance of the keyword in the domain/URL, most in those SERPs have that advantage. The few exceptions could be down to IBL with the keyword. That would definitely support the idea that title weight has been reduced (maybe to address the blog post advantage).
Either that or WordPress got removed from these SERPs - can't think why that would happen though.
I really don't think folks at Google are manipulating results to favor Google products... I'd bet a closer look at the various results will show that the results make sense. 1. I don't think they have the time... they're busy. 2. Their reputation as a fair provider of relevant search results is too valuable to screw with.
"Either that or WordPress got removed from these SERPs - can't think why that would happen though. "
Ah, reminds me of one of my favourite titles on Threadwatch: Wordpress - Our Shit Don't Stink! :)
Could it really be that Google didn't entirely lift the penalty after that??
Got to admit, I'm much more inclined to an indexing or algo issue - certainly we've seen plenty of the former over the years as even mainstream sites bounce in and out of the SERPs, and on the latter, Wordpress just isn't well focused on "blog" as a keyword and has an awfully unnatural link profile to boot which could invite some degree of filtering.
Perhaps someone should offer Mr Mullenweg SEO consultancy. :)
Wordpress comes up no. 5 in Yahoo search for "blog". No. 7 on Ask. (maybe they've got better algos?...).
PS: Doesn't feature in MSN but nor do any other blogworthy results, so no conclusions drawn from there...
Do people search for "blog" or "Wordpress?"
The same thing happens on both Yahoo and MSN, so the phenomena is not just restricted to Google.
Wordpress has always been totally oblivious to the concerns of search engine optimization. Isn't that reality totally obvious to anyone who has ever tried use the default Wordpress setup and be visible in Google? Wordpress has its own culture. Wordpress is a network of interconnecting blogs that are tied together by the Wordpress software itself.
Just thought that you might want to know that Wordpress depends on Feeds, pinging, and trackbacks rather than upon Google. Must be nice, huh?
I devoted an entire page to this topic a while back on my main blog.
Wordpress is blogging CMS, not a "blog" per se. That is why it is not an exact relevance match for blog.
@John
>The same thing happens on both Yahoo and MSN, so the phenomena is not just restricted to Google.
No it doesn't. Wordpress.com is in top 10 for "blog" on Ask and Yahoo. Not anywhere in top 1000 in Google. Different rankings there.
@HeadlandDigital
Yes but that would make it "less competitive" not absent. It doesn't appear in all available results (97 pages worth).
Try "Create a Blog." Try MSN.
If Wordpress actually wanted to be visible they would be all over the map.
Remember ...
No, we don't rank WordPress blogs any higher or lower because they're WordPress. WordPress is a fine software package to publish a blog on, just like TypePad or Blogger or Bloxsom or anything else. I'd urge people to avoid judging on the basis of 1-2 random queries. For example, the queries that I thought of first were [start a blog] and [create a blog] and [blog hosting] and WordPress is in the top 3 for all of those phrases for me.
When I want to find Wordpress, I never search for "Blog." In fact, I do not think that until today I have ever searched for "blog" on a search engine. I search for "Wordpress" and have absolutely no trouble finding plenty of search returns in Google. Usually a site operated by Wordpress is right on top of the returns.
I'm sure there are many examples where searching for such a ridiculous broad search term doesn't reveal the results that one searcher may have wished for. As has been mentioned, at the very best, searching for the term "blog" would maybe be a staring point in a search. If I had created a blog authoring software then the term "blog" would be very very low on my list of keywords to optimise. It's a broad term only. The very broadest in fact. I would go as far to say it was possibly foolish to try and spend any time trying to SEO a website for the term "blog" (or any other equally broad term).
As an example (and this with a nod at Donace who said "free and opensource services homepages rank preety low compared to paid alternatives") try searching for "operating system". Now whilst the results do bring a warmth to my heart, you shouldn't be suprised to note a distinct lack of results for a certain well know company and/or that same companies software.
Why doesn't Wordpress do well for the term "blog"? Simple; they didn't deem it a term worth spending that much time over. Maybe. IMO. Simple as.
Another question is: Why does it matter? Like I said, there are many many broad search terms that don't reveal specific websites etc. it really isn't an issue.
Are Google trying to hide it? No, don't be so daft. Don't get me wrong, I'm a long way from being Google's #1 fan, a very very long way but there is just no eveidence what so ever to back up such an ill thought out speculative claim.
doesn´t matter if you use wordpress or typepad, only matters the content and the domain authority.
@onreact - You should thank Garry for bringing a whole new group of people to Sphinn.
@Nick -- Thank you for being so active on this post. I will have to go check out some of yours.
@Garry -- Thanks for letting people know about this great SEO community. I was aware of Sphinn and even thought I had an account, but because of you, I created one.
I think if Wordpress wanted to rank better for the word "blog" they could. They have the reputation and age in their favor. However, as has been pointed out, I don't think they care to. Frankly, it doesn't look like they need to. Millions of people are "pressing" the "word" out about them. :O)
I doubt Google is being evil or even underhanded when it comes to Wordpress.
This sphinn is a classic example of the superstitious crap that far too many SEMs come up with when they try to humanize Google. I have written a great deal about this topic on my Scientific SEO blog.
Hey al you guys, first of all how did you miss a point about Google search engine, It shows results based on the search word present in meta content or the url, and next comes the number of visitors or page ranking. and check out wordpress, it has no "blog" mentioned in the total site. you guys know google follows an algorithm to display results.
What do you say? I am sorry if am wrong, this is my opinion.
@googram
We're referring to the sites Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org, where you can find the term "blog" both in the META and page content.
WordPress.com » Get a Free Blog Here
WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform
HTH
Hi Nick
what about in urls?
blogger has blog in it and even blog .com is coming some sixth place away
wordpress.com has 17 "blog"s in its meta content, i mean in the total site and wordpress.org has 7 and blogger has 214!!! do you think then also google frauds on this??
The googles algorithm is based on the number of times the keyword is used
type in "get a free blog here" and you will find surprised to see wordpress comes second.
and blogger comes fifth
wordpress has a free blog service and does blogger, then why do they come in different places??
Its all about SEO. optimizing the site for good keywords and also good number of keywords is also important
@googram
Yep totally agree that wordpress doesn't have "blog" in the domain or URL.
I see what you are saying but it's not as simple as the number of times the keyword "blog" is mentioned, otherwise we'd all be taking keyword density (KWD) tools seriously still. Google algorithm is a little more complicated that that.
For example, your site may mention "blog" 50 times but have no authority (no IBLs, new domain etc.) and it may still not rank well. Another site with 95k+ links, bundles of authority puts the keyword in the title and content once and bang - it's ranking. By your logic the first site would always be ranking above the second example, that isn't the case.
It's true that having the keyword in the domain is an extremely strong signal and perhapes that is what we should walk away with from this sphinn. The fact that several thousand low level blogspot sites rank above the authoritive and well linked Wordpress.com/.org site in those SERPs. If there is no penalty involved, which seems unlikely, then the obvious difference is the keyword domain.
There is a very old SEO game called doing a search for the "computer" keyword. Dell, http://www.dell.com, ranks near the top even though the word "computer" is not used once on their home page.
As previously pointed out, but worth emphasizing once again, no body else on the Internet is pointing towards the Wordpress.com/.org sites with "blog" as the anchor text. It is as simple as that.
This is totally basic SEO. It painfully points out a major difference between SEO and SEM. And, it conclusively documents that the points trying to be made by this sphinn are nothing but superstitious nonsense.
Good point JohnHGohde on the link anchor text. Having strong link anchor text can have a great effect on SEO rankings.
I personally use blogger, but I'm considering switching over to WordPress for more flexibility. I have noticed that when creating a new blog in Blogger, it seems like the blog is more quickly indexed that on most blogging platforms. From an indexing standpoint, I can see why Blogger could have a slight "freshness" advantage.
Remembered this from last month but came across a survey comparing popular CMS'.
18 different CMS tracked and part of the comparison is for the following keywords -
cms, content management system, open source cms, open source content management systems, content management system cms
Wordpress didn't appear in the top 50 results for any term. Joomla was in top 50 for all 5 with 3 page one results.
But looking at inlinks -
Mediawiki - 1,390,000
php-Nuke - 1,100,00
Joomla! - 1,060,000
Wordpress - 403,000
So explains a bit.
Survey from July 2008.
You can see the ipaper here http://www.scribd.com/doc/4161932/2008-Open-Source-CMS-Market-Survey
Or pdf from the source http://www.waterandstone.com/resources.html