There is no question WordPress is a popular choice when it comes to creating a website. Not only is it very easy to use, but there are tons of free templates/themes and plugins available. Since it is so popular you can find many help websites catered to WordPress.
Does Google really show some kind of favoritism towards WordPress based websites or any other specific scripts or software used to run a website?
I was kind of neutral on this one until I logged into Google webmaster tools not long ago to see a message that said:
“WordPress Update Available”.
So naturally I wanted to see what the full message contained.
Here is what the message said:
Dear site owner or webmaster of http://dialme.com/,
Your site appears to be running an older version of WordPress. Google recommends that you update to the latest release. Older or unpatched software may be vulnerable to hacking or malware that can hurt your users. To download the latest release, visit the WordPress download page.
If you have any additional questions about why you are receiving this message, Google has provided more background information in a blog post about this subject.
Best wishes,
Google Search Quality Team
Shortly after I did upgrade which you can read about here if interested:
Upgrading to WordPress 3.2
Now I have used a number of different website scripts over the years and I can’t remember ever receiving a message in Google webmaster tools like this one.
After checking the blog post link, it also speaks of a Drupal module and Joomla extension update.
And the same post mentions Matt Mullenweg, i.e. the developer of WordPress.
So is there a little favoring WordPress, Drupal and Joomla going on with Google? Possibly. I guess if WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla do a good job and Google likes them, what do you do!
Obviously it would be difficult if not impossible to provide update notices for all the different types of websites and software scripts out there, but it would seem that Google does like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla a bit more than some others. And, they do provide notifications in webmaster tools about new releases.
I am the site owner and administrator of DialMe.com. I provide help and tips for Boonex Dolphin on the main part of this website where you will also find an assortment of other resources. Here, on the blog I write about a variety of topics surrounding WordPress, technology, social media/networking, SEO, and webmaster resources.
9 comments
Well it could be one of several things.
It could simply be that WordPress have asked Google to do it or paid for it.
But I´m more prone to thing that Google is looking for a way onto the blog platform again, since blogger/blogspot is failing big time. And blogger/blogspot is 99 times out of 100 used for seo or spam and nothing more.
And they can´t use Blogengine, due to it being open source.
It seems like Google pushes blogging platforms. There are a lot of other very good website scripts out there, but they seem to lean towards blogs.
DialMe recently posted..Yahoo Site Explorer Closing
Well I believe Google favors word press websites. I got one website on word press and it crawls very fast and also ranking well.
I agree, I’ve recently published a wordpress site and it was crawled and ranked much quicker\better then any previous sites I’ve put online.
I would be inclined to say no. Other factors must be contributing to you increased hits. Matt Cutts says that google does not care what you use to build the site.
I suspect that the drupal site was indexed and and its mere coincidence that this occurred when you migrated to wordpress. Though this is just my suspicion.
How long has the site been going?
Was it drupal only before wordpress? Are you certain that drupal was set with all the various SEO tweaks you have in WP? (I thought that it was drupal lacked the plethora of SEO plugins such as All-in-one seo pack etc that you use – canonical et)
Did you have the same socialization buttons and twitter features then as now?
I hope you have Google Analytics of then and now also so you can see where these links referred from.
I for example came here from cake bakery after reading a splendid article (table-less passwords) then read 2 more posts whilst here.
Anyway it will be interesting to see what you find. (I had always written off drupal myself- but that is just me being judgemental :})
I would like to add that Google doesn’t encounters problem with WordPress sites but Drupal have some Modules which are more search engine friendly.So if Website is designed from search engine perspective, I would go with Drupal.
I am not nearly as familiar with Drupal or Joomla, but I do hear some good things about both.
I would be inclined to say no. Other factors must be contributing to you increased hits. Matt Cutts says that google does not care what you use to build the site.
I suspect that the drupal site was indexed and and its mere coincidence that this occurred when you migrated to wordpress. Though this is just my suspicion.
yes you are so right! google likes wordpress more. I first published the site on blogger platform and then deleted those posts and reopened them on the wordpress platform. Not only were they indexed faster but appear in search results far more often with high rankings.
I would advise anyone looking to start your blog to go right ahead with wordpress, for sure.