Warning! Content Management Systems Can Damage Search Engine Positioning
Content management systems are great for maintaining large web sites, but many systems produce side effects with serious negative consequences for search engine positioning.
Content management systems are great for maintaining large web sites, but many systems produce side effects with serious negative consequences for search engine positioning.
Content management systems (CMS) are designed to ease the development and maintenance of large sites. They are particularly useful for sites where a lot of people work on the content, and for dynamic web sites, such as online stores.
Most of these systems were built without much thought to how the content they generate fares in search engine results. Unfortunately, this means some CMS-created web sites are all but invisible to most search engines.
The good news is that there are workarounds and other potential solutions for most CMS platforms. The current issue of Content Management Focus has a feature article covering the issues and solutions related to CMS and search engines.
The author, Sandra Higgison, attended the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in London and spoke with a number of experts, including speakers Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Alan Perkins, Jill Whalen and Danny Sullivan, who all offered interesting insights into the problem.
Higgison also spoke with CMS vendors and customers. The result is an excellent overview of the challenges users of CMS systems face.
Although Higgison’s article is considered premium content, available only to subscribers of the magazine, Sandra has graciously provided a special URL for SearchDay readers to access the article at no charge.
Even if you don’t use a content management system for your own web site, the article is well worth reading to understand yet another reason why some content is part of the invisible web, hidden from even the best search engines.
Warning! Your CMS could damage your content’s health
Content Management Focus Magazine, June 2003
http://www.cmfocus.com/seo
Making Dynamic and E-Commerce Sites Search Engine Friendly
SearchDay, October 29, 2002
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2161081
Many dynamic and e-commerce web sites are unwittingly part of the Invisible web, but there are several strategies for making them more search engine friendly.
Search Engines And Dynamic Pages
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/subscribers/more/dynamic.html
This article, available to Search Engine Watch members, provides additional information about testing for and solving dynamic delivery problems.
Resources
Analytics The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index
Analytics Data Analytics in Marketing
Digital Marketing The Third-Party Data Deprecation Playbook
Digital Marketing Utilizing Email To Stop Fraud-eCommerce Client Fraud Case Study
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NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication’s search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.
