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| | The Internet Marketing Tools Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | Views: 1239 | | May 11, 2005 4:51 am | | Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Dean H. | | How would the SEO experts on this forum rank the various blogging service providers in terms of being most SEO friendly. That is, which of the blogging services can help an individual get a higher visibility on the web relative to the other providers.
Specifically, how would you rank and analyze the following providers;
1) Blogger (part of Google)
2) Tyepad
3) Squarespace
4) Livejournal
5) Wordpress
Thanks,
DeanPrivate Reply to Dean H. | | May 12, 2005 12:35 am | | re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Anita Cohen-Williams | | Dean,
From what I have seen so far, Blogger is the most friendly. But, I have not tried the other services yet.
Blogger is one of the easiest to use. WordPress and LiveJournal seem to have a steeper learning curve. Private Reply to Anita Cohen-Williams | | May 12, 2005 4:28 am | | re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Dean H. | | Anita,
That's an interesting line of thought. What is it about Blogger makes them to be more SEO friendly? I use Squarespace as my preferred blog provider. With respect to blogs and their SEO friendliness, is it safe for me to assume that several SEO features of blogs are their;
-permalinks,
-trackbacks,
-pinging?
In terms of pinging, here's the breakdown;
-SS pings 5 blog search engines.
-Typepad pings two.
-Blogger pings one.
-Blogharbor pings at least one. Maybe two. Can anyone verify this?
In terms of permalinks and trackback, here's the breakdown;
-Typepad has both
-Squarespace has neither.
-Blogger has neither.
-Blogharbor has both as well as keyword tagging.
re: Wordpress has steep learning curve.
That's interesting that you say that because over on Blogging for Business Network, quite a few people rave about WP and their famous 5 minute install program. I had major issues with trying to install WP. Don't know much about LiveJournal except for the fact they have a huge following and big network of users.
DeanPrivate Reply to Dean H. | | May 13, 2005 3:34 pm | | re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Garland Coulson | | Hi Dean,
Great question! The reason blogs rank well in the search engines is
that they have lots of constantly updating content. I believe this has a
greater impact than trackbacks, permalinks or any of the other factors.
My personal favorite and the one I am designing my new, free internet
marketing tools blog in is
www.blogharbor.com.
Garland Coulson, "The E-Business
Tutor"
Download my FREE e-book, "Questions
to Ask Your Web Designer"
Moderator,
Internet Marketing Tools Private Reply to Garland Coulson | | May 13, 2005 4:56 pm | | re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Adrian Fusiarski | | I'm very much biased towards Word Press as thats what I've been using for the last year at
http://news.buzzsonic.com/index.php
Its not a hosted solution so its not like signing up for an account with Blogger/Google.So it does mean you'll have to install it yourself on your webspace, but if you have a web host that supports CPanel/Fantastico its as easy as switching a light on anyway!
As for the SEO aspects of it, I've been quite stunned by how quickly the site started to generate in coming links without me actually having to lift a single finger. Firstly, WP pings a number of blog search engines automatically with each new entry to the blog (as I'm sure they all do). And the RSS syndication aspect has been incredibly successful and I'm finding the majority of referrers are coming from subscribers to the feed.
I recently got a mention at Slashdot (http://news.buzzsonic.com/?p=359 ) which resulted in a weeks worth of visitors in about 3 hours too. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have happened without the RSS feed.
None of my sites are 'static' anymore.
One that you didn't mention that is worth considering is Mambo Server (http://mamboserver.com). Again, like Word Press its free and there is a lot of community support which is a very important thing to consider. Though Mambo works more like a community portal than just a blog, its certainly worth considering if you're looking for blogging features but want more of a corporate look.
I'm pretty much against hosting my blogs on anybody else's sub domain too as it doesn't add to your Google PR but theirs, so thats another consideration.
AdePrivate Reply to Adrian Fusiarski | | May 13, 2005 6:54 pm | | re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Biana Babinsky | | Good, changing content is something that search engines love. Therefore changing blog posts will provide great search engine food.
RSS feeds is another consideration. I notice many people accessing RSS feeds on my blog every day.
I have to agree with Ade about hosting your own blog, if you can. While other solutions might be easier to install and configure, WP is a great solution to host on your own domain, and, thus, get all the benefits. This is the platform I recommend to my clients.
Biana Babinsky
Want to start a blog for your business? 5 Steps to Success with your Business Blog Private Reply to Biana Babinsky | | May 14, 2005 11:36 pm | | re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Judy LaMont | | Blogger.com seems to be the easiest one that I have used. I have started over 5 blogs for different subjects. My presumption is that since it is connected with Google that the search engine becomes very automatic.
The best part is there is no learning curve and very simple to use.
Judy Private Reply to Judy LaMont | | May 15, 2005 12:33 pm | | re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # | 
Steve Bralovich | | For SEO friendliness, I'm having a lot of success with Blogger.
After setting up my Blog and using some proven SEO friendly techniques, I achieved a search position of #1 on Yahoo and #6 on google within 5 weeks on my targeted keywords.
Since then I am number 1 on Google and Number 2 on Yahoo. I also have a page rank on Google of 3/10. Low but not bad for a blog that has only been around since Mid-March.
I'm convinced that using Blogger has made it easier for the search engines to rank my site.
That's because search engines love themselves. In other words, Google loves Google.
However, there's a lot more involved and without using those other techniques I mentioned, I doubt that I would have enjoyed the results that I have.
--Steve
PDA and Mobile Today Blog
http://pdatoday.blogspot.com Private Reply to Steve Bralovich | | May 15, 2005 3:31 pm | | re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Adrian Fusiarski | | Its highly unlikely that having a blog on Blogger gives you slightest bit of advantage with search engines, and the PR will reflect more on the fact that your blog is sat on a sub-domain of blogspot/blogger and isn't as 'authentic' (wrong word I know) as having PR for your own domain.
Blogger/Blogspot already has a PR of 9 so, its true, any sub-domain is likely to be rated 'favourably' in that respect.
http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/
Back to an earlier comment on this thread about Word Press. Well if people find the thought of installing new software on remote server space, not to worry, there are some very easy shortcuts.
Firstly you'll need to find a webhost that uses CPanel and Fantastico. Basically CPanel is an online administration control panel for webmasters to admin their websites, add email addresses to their domains etc. Fantastico is a CPanel 'plug-in' which installs extra scripts for you at the click of a mouse.
Now these webhosts are everywhere because CPanel is the number one web control panel in the biz (Plesk is the second favourite). So anyway, one of the scripts that is installed as standard on Fantastico is Word Press.
http://www.cpanel.net/
http://www.netenberg.com/fantastico.php
http://www.sw-soft.com/en/products/plesk7
Fantastico has a choice of blogging software.As well as WP they usually have
Nucleus http://nucleuscms.org/
B2 Evolution http://b2evolution.net/ and
PMachine Free (also known as Expression Engine)
http://www.pmachine.com/
Both B2Evolution and PMachine you'll find are similar to Movable Type of which Word Press is a derivative of too.
There's a breakdown of some more software here:
http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
Back to the webhosts. Its a buyers market out there so make sure you choose your host very, very wisely, especially if you intend to use your site for business. Never be seduced by lowest price or claims of 'unlimited bandwidth'. Unlimited bandwidth is a myth, anyone trying to sell you on this is either trying to hoodwink you or doesn't know what they're talking about. Usually both.
Always search out the background on a proposed webhost. Always. Check reputable hosting forums first. Search the forums for the name of your host and see what feedback they get from users. Also, just be aware, never, never take things that you read on forums as the abslute last word and gospel. Most forums are packed with anonymous trolls, lurkers, spammers and moles so just use comments as a guide-line.
A forum mole? Basically someone you'll see a lot of on webmaster forums, either hyping up their own or shooting down a rival firm at popular forums. SEO forums are popular for these guys.
Anyway, these are the ones that are the most 'reputable'.
http://webhostingtalk.com/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/category39.htm
http://webhosting.devshed.com/
http://www.hosthideout.com/
And if you want a 'guideline' price to have your own blog software on a reliable host with Cpanel/Fantastico, allow $10 a month.
Dont pay more than $10 a year for your domain names either. Ever. If you pay more than $10 a year you're paying too much.
http://www.godaddy.com and
http://1and1.com are both around $8 a year.
AdePrivate Reply to Adrian Fusiarski | | May 16, 2005 12:16 am | | re: wordpress | # |
Dean H. | | Biana & Ade,
Regarding Wordpress, it seems that everyone can get that darn thing installed except me. Am I missing some sort of file on my computer that won't allow me install it. I've been told that going with a web hosting provider that has Fantastico and cpanel will make WP easier to install? I really would love to try and install WP.
DeanPrivate Reply to Dean H. | | May 16, 2005 12:53 am | | re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Dean H. | | Ade,
How SEO friendly, relative to other blog providers, is Mambo? Does it have an internal search engine submission system that pings other blog search engines? I know Squarespace pings 5 different engines. I get bots spidering my blog every other day.
Why did you decide on WP as opposed to Mambo? Because their features looks AWESOME. I'll have to check out their stuff.
DeanPrivate Reply to Dean H. | | May 16, 2005 1:29 am | | re: re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Adrian Fusiarski | | 'Pinging' doesn't ping the 'big three' search engines, just blog search engines. I'm not sure that its that important to be quite honest Dean, its certainly not something that I'd ever consider as a 'must have' on any blog software or content maanagement system I was getting.
You can ping over 15 search engines here just by entering your URL and ticking the desired engines.So its not really a selling point when you can do it so simply anyway. Plus the SE's that will send you the traffic are Google, Yahoo and MSN. The rest are just window dressing to be honest.
http://pingomatic.com/ From the creator of Word Press funnily enough !
I chose Word Press simply because it was all I needed. Mambo is more of a portal look (with more features than I needed) so I would've hacked it and trimmed it down anyway. Word Press had all the features that I needed and a very big development support network. I will get round to utilising Mambo but for another project. Its incredibly well featured and it looks so much better than PHP-Nuke and its spin offs.
Word Press is also neat because you have about 120 templates that you can install, mess about with the look of each of those etc etc.
I think what you need to know is how 'search engine friendly' are all of these. Check out how your site looks to search bots here
http://www.anybrowser.com/EngineView.html
AdePrivate Reply to Adrian Fusiarski | | May 16, 2005 7:34 pm | | re: re: re: blog webhosting | # |
Dean H. | | So then another question arises for me. What would be a good webhosting provider that provides reseller programs? I know Hostgater has been talked up alot because it also offers blog hosting as well and they provide bang for the buck. And I would need a web hosting provider that does provide blog hosting. I looked at their information, but I'm not sure if they support Mambo. Are there any webhosting resellers that support Mambo? Or does it matter because any web hosting that has CPanel and Fantastico will take care of Mambo as well?
Tech support is also a big deal with me as well. I've had a couple people PM me about their offers. They are a reseller and will now resell to me. Which I don't mind as long as they can provide the tech support for my clients. I don't want anything to do with tech support or any issues that deals with helping the client get up and running and maintain their site. I'd rather have someone else take care of that, even if it means I have to pay a few more dollars. Having someone else take care of that will allow me to focus on other issues of the business.
DeanPrivate Reply to Dean H. | | May 17, 2005 9:31 am | | re: re: re: re: blog webhosting | # | 
Sarah Lewis | | >What would be a good webhosting provider that provides reseller programs?
I've been very happy with Siteground [ www.siteground.com ]. They have good tech support and their reseller rates are very reasonable. I typically get my clients set up on a standard configuration with them and then contact Siteground if I need anything beyond the basics. They've been very accomodating.
>Are there any webhosting resellers that support Mambo?
Mambo's requirements for standard operations are very minimal (PHP and mySQL). You can do some slightly fancier things (particularly search engine friendlier URLs) if your server supports something called "mod_rewrite" but most hosts support that anyway. I've had several different hosts (some of them VERY cheap and not really recommended) and every one of them supported Mambo just fine.
SarahPrivate Reply to Sarah Lewis | | May 17, 2005 9:41 am | | re: re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Sarah Lewis | | >How SEO friendly, relative to other blog providers, is Mambo?
Mambo is not, by most standards, a blog provider. They do have a blog component, but it is just one among many, and in my opinion, it's only mediocre. I have nothing against Mambo (indeed, I use it for my business site and that of many of my clients) but I use it for its more traditional CMS features, not for its blogging features. I don't believe it does pinging at all (though I could be wrong; I typically use another blog system from within Mambo).
>Why did you decide on WP as opposed to Mambo? Because their features looks AWESOME. I'll have to check out their stuff.
I've just recently started using WordPress but I love it so far. I've found the templates to be a little limited (I usually build custom templates anyway so I'm not concerned) but the features are excellent, the interface is smooth, and they've really positioned themselves well by embracing developers (there are already a good number of free third-party plugins, and I think that number is going to continue increasing at a healthy pace).
You might find the blog comparison at http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm to be helpful. That's how I narrowed it down to WordPress and a couple others. Then I just played with the final contenders to decide.
SarahPrivate Reply to Sarah Lewis | | May 17, 2005 10:37 am | | re: re: re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Adrian Fusiarski | | Sarah, have you looked at
http://www.alexking.org/software/wordpress/theme_browser.php
Over 100 templates, some rubbish but some really really cool ones too. The best one BY FAR (for me) is at
http://www.semiologic.com/projects/sem-theme/
I'm using it here (still got to modify it though)
http://floorelevators.com/
Sarah's right Dean, Mambo isn't blog software, its more what I'd call a full blown CMS (Content Management System) and people tend to use it as a nicer more pro-looking (free) alternative to PHP-Nuke.
http://phpnuke.org/
More CMS here...
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
http://nucleuscms.org/
AdePrivate Reply to Adrian Fusiarski | | May 17, 2005 10:59 am | | re: re: re: re: re: Which blog services are the most SEO friendly? | # |
Sarah Lewis | | I did go through the WordPress theme browser, downloaded a few (I'm using one at my new blog, Making the Big Bucks), but wasn't overly impressed with most of them. That's okay, though, because they've made it easy enough to make templates that I'm sure the selection will improve as more people use the software.
I'm with you on semiologic! The theme is attractive, but I really like Denis's plugins. I played around with several of them just yesterday, and he'll definitely be getting a donation from me.
Mentioning the plugins brings me back to the topic of the original conversation... I think plugins are one of the best things in the blogging world (whether you use WordPress or Movable Type or any other plugin/extension-supporting platform). When it comes down to it, if you use blogging software that supports plugins, it becomes a whole lot easier to come up with "the perfect software," simply because it's so customizable.
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