15 replies to this topic

[TimOtool]

This is a hypothetical situation.
Let's say there are two identical websites.
Both websites have same meta tags, same contents, same text.

Site one - 100% HTML web design (clean code, CSS design)
Site two - 100% Joomla, fully loaded with SEO option(s).

My educated guess is that HTML website will have SEO advantage over Joomla website.
I think such way because I am an old-school designer.
Is that statement still true? or am I under-estimating the power of Joomla?

Thank you very much.

[Jill]

It's all html by the time the search engine sees it, so there shouldn't be any difference.

[projectphp]

How can two identical sites be different? What an interesting philosophical question!

[TimOtool]

How can two identical sites be different? What an interesting philosophical question!

Philosophical? What are you talking about?
Do you know HTML?
Do you know computer?

Write down "Hello world" in a blank HTML page.
Write down "Hello world" in a blank Joomla page.
Now look at the source code.
Do they look exactly alike to you?

Oh, Thank you, Jill, for non-sarcastic reply.

Edited by TimOtool, 08 May 2007 - 11:17 PM.

[Jill]

Now look at the source code.

But see the search engines don't care about the code, they only care about the content.

[projectphp]

Philosophical? What are you talking about?
Do you know HTML?
Do you know computer?

Computer, what's that?????? I get pigeons to fly me in bits of stone with the posts on forums chisselled into them

You can make Joomla do whatever you want. You can code Joomla to output nothing, if you so choose. Or you can program it to output solid code, or you can program it to ouput rubbish. It is up to you.

The idea that there is "hand code" and "CMS rubbish code" is just not true. If you have bad CMS code you have a bad designer, or a lazy one who never fixed anything or bothered to put together a custom design.

Of course, like i said, identical sites will likely, well, perform exactly the same, after all, that is what identical implies

Edited by projectphp, 09 May 2007 - 12:46 AM.

[adybee]

Philosophical? What are you talking about?
Do you know HTML?
Do you know computer?

Write down "Hello world" in a blank HTML page.
Write down "Hello world" in a blank Joomla page.
Now look at the source code.
Do they look exactly alike to you?

Oh, Thank you, Jill, for non-sarcastic reply.

Yes the code will definitely look different but run both pages through Lynx text browser and then you'll see roughly what G sees

[torka]

TimOtool, I'm a hand-coder from way back. I started out Back In The Day when we had to whittle our own keyboards out of wood and use the leftover wood shavings for the steam generator to power the CPU. I was writing HTML (using Notepad) back when some of the whippersnappers who have posted on the HR forums were still in diapers (literally, which in some sense is pretty sad ).

I am a big fan of clean code and about as Old School as they come. And I'm in the process of converting all my sites over from hand-coded HTML to WordPress and/or Joomla. And I won't start a new site that doesn't ride on top of some kind of content management system.

When I convert a site, carrying over identical content and using available tools to keep the same URLs, I see no big changes in traffic, so I assume no big changes in rankings (I don't check rankings as a general rule). Google people say the search engines simply toss out any code that's irrelevant to their ranking algo, and my experience has been that -- despite what fanatical clean code advocates might claim -- there's no search engine benefit to clean code. One of the highest ranking, best traffic generating, highest sales earning sites I work with has code that makes me shudder in disgust (JFTR, I didn't code the site to start with). Complete, utter crap code, but Google and the other SEs love the site.

There are plenty of reasons to write good code, don't get me wrong -- but it ain't gonna help anybody with search engine rankings.

And the new CMS platforms make it so much easier to keep my sites updated! All I need to update/add content is an Internet connection and a browser, so I can update my sites pretty much any time from anywhere.

As much as it pains this old fashioned girl to say it, I just can't justify going back to the old way.

--Torka

[Scottie]

If you want a really tedious project, check the pages for the top search results for almost any query. Now try 3 more queries.

The lean and mean, elegantly and efficiently coded pages don't fare any better than the bloated, code-heavy, error-laden pages. There are plenty of reasons to code well, but SEO isn't one of them.

[projectphp]

I don't know that there are, really. Getting something built is usually the most important thing, and all the suppossed benefits of "good" code are ruined by bad compilers (i.e. the browsers). Get it working, move on with your life is my motto.

Edited by projectphp, 09 May 2007 - 07:16 PM.

[69Mustang]

The idea that there is "hand code" and "CMS rubbish code" is just not true. If you have bad CMS code you have a bad designer, or a lazy one who never fixed anything or bothered to put together a custom design.

Does this refer to custom design vs templates in Joomla as well? Thank you for a great forum, btw.

[projectphp]

It refers to any coding. Templates can produce good code, indifferent code or crap code. In general answer will be wrong, so really, I can't answer.

[Digiweb]

This is a hypothetical situation.
Let's say there are two identical websites.
Both websites have same meta tags, same contents, same text.

Site one - 100% HTML web design (clean code, CSS design)
Site two - 100% Joomla, fully loaded with SEO option(s).

My educated guess is that HTML website will have SEO advantage over Joomla website.
I think such way because I am an old-school designer.
Is that statement still true? or am I under-estimating the power of Joomla?

Thank you very much.

When you say "identical" you are referring to content. I have the greatest respect for Jill's opinion, if she says the content is all they see then you're comparing content apples to content apples and neither format has the advantage. We programmers tend to be very literal, if you say "identical" then we interpret your question as redundant -- which is a better apple, the green Granny Smith or the Granny Smith that is green?

I know from writing string parsers that it is possible for a search engine algorithm to choke on bad code, and I am guessing you're referring to this phenomenom. String parsers live and die on signals or "tokens." For instance, starting here "<" is an html tag. Parser, starting here, you're reading the element until you get one of these: ">". The code/seo question is, will a parser miss content if it strangles on the code? For instance, if my code says "<html><title>great title</title><body great content</body></html> there's a GOOD chance the SE will NEVER read my content because I never ended the body tag.

So IF the Joomla template is not xhtml (perfectly formatted html) it loses to the css/xhtml hand-coded variety.

The problem I think we're having with this question is that Joomla can easily produce "100% HTML web design (clean code, CSS design)," so there's absolutely no search engine question: build xhtml/css Joomla output and get the best of both.

[projectphp]

It is probably LESS likely to happen with a CMS, because you code once, not for every page, thus minimising human error. Witha CMS, either ALL pages are fine, or none are, there is no inbetween. With individually coded pages, each time they are edditted there is a chance of a mistake.

[pli]

The major difference between joomla and pure .html sites (included so called templated sites) is that joomla is not friendly in the way that page titles are handled.

In the set up in joomla, one gives the site a title, which is added to the front of every page title within the site - First

Switching on dynamic page titles add the title of the page that the article is given, but that in my view does not help being "after" the site title

there are however, at least one after market component that can be purchased, and seems to work well.

(dont ask me what it is - I am only a purchaser and not affiliated with it)
If you want it, you will find it in the joomla extensions site

P