Does the theme you use make a difference?

by MarioB
17 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Good day all,

Been reading some SEO articles and some indicate that the WordPress theme you use makes no difference in SEO, while others indicated that it does.

I would like to hear your opinions on this.

Also, if it does have an impact, can anyone recommend a good magazine style SEO friendly theme?

Thank-you...
#difference #make #theme
  • Profile picture of the author ShoppingSignals
    The specific theme you use doesn't matter. What matters is that your site is optimized for speed, is easy for search engines to crawl, and is easy for people to navigate. There are some themes that do these things better than others. But, most themes can be adapted to meet these needs.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    The theme controls the layout and the code of the site, so yeah, it definitely can make a difference.
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    • Profile picture of the author AlphaWarrior
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      The theme controls the layout and the code of the site, so yeah, it definitely can make a difference.
      From what I have seen, you cannot really tell what a theme is like until you have actually loaded it and start using it.

      How do you select a theme without downloading it first? What criteria do you look for?

      Thanks!
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by AlphaWarrior View Post

        From what I have seen, you cannot really tell what a theme is like until you have actually loaded it and start using it.

        How do you select a theme without downloading it first? What criteria do you look for?

        Thanks!
        You're right. You really have no idea until you start using it.

        I do not use any free themes anymore these days. Mine are all premium themes that I bought and paid for after reading lots of reviews and digging around for info on them.

        If you are using free themes, you are just going to have to install them and take a look at them.
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        • Profile picture of the author SEOCrate
          If you're using a theme that is vastly used by spammy sites, it can hurt your search engine optimization. While this isn't common, it is possible.

          For example, say you create your own theme where you're the only person on the web using it. You then you use that theme for 10 different websites which all end up getting algorithmically or manually penalized by Google for some reason.

          If you were to create another website and use that same theme (where every site that uses that theme is spammy), that theme in particular can be a spam indicator for your new site.
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by SEOCrate View Post

            If you're using a theme that is vastly used by spammy sites, it can hurt your search engine optimization. While this isn't common, it is possible.

            For example, say you create your own theme where you're the only person on the web using it. You then you use that theme for 10 different websites which all end up getting algorithmically or manually penalized by Google for some reason.

            If you were to create another website and use that same theme (where every site that uses that theme is spammy), that theme in particular can be a spam indicator for your new site.
            Do you have some proof of that or are you just guessing?

            It sounds a lot like what professionals in the business refer to as "made up horseshit".
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            • Profile picture of the author SEOCrate
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              Do you have some proof of that or are you just guessing?

              It sounds a lot like what professionals in the business refer to as "made up horseshit".
              So you don't think Google can detect sites that use the exact same theme as being somewhat associated with each other? (Note: when the vast majority of users using that theme are detected as spam)

              The whole concept of spam detection by Google is to stereotype sites together based on the indicators they omit (think racial profiling, but with websites).

              google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/fighting-spam.html

              1. Identify what spam looks like through manual workers
              2. Group sites together and algorithmically penalize based on these factors

              What do you think Google Panda & Penguin are created from?
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    I agree with Mike.

    A badly designed theme can be slow to load and format HTML that isn't as friendly to search engines as other themes.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    A WordPress theme can have a major impact on a sites SERPs and traffic, I've seen sites over double their traffic after moving to the WordPress SEO theme I develop.

    There are themes (and SEO plugins) that are so poorly thought out they can kneecap your on-site SEO.

    Obviously a theme isn't the be all and end all of SEO, themes can't write decent content, they don't generate backlinks, they don't stop a user making SEO mistakes, but they can easily damage a sites SEO or improve it.

    David
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    All of the above. Poorly conceived themes can do a lot of damage, particularly if they congest and dilute things like title elements with unnecessary text (leave a comment, related posts, about the author, etc being common points of failure.)

    Then of course there's a host of layout concerns like divitis or JS/CSS being blocked by the stock robots.txt file, cluttered head sections (which is particularly important as this is often the base data Google store in their BigTable for a lot of base algo calculations), etc etc etc....

    The rule of thumb here is to not sacrifice appearance for poor SEO unless you are confident in your ability with CSS and PHP to restyle an correct the problems by hand.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Okay, so yeah. It is the made up horseshit category.

    The same theme is the kind of thing that could get you screwed on a manual review.

    They are not hitting sites algorithmically based on a WordPress theme.

    There is zero evidence of that.
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    Experience has shown me that it completely depends on saturation.

    Something like a theme thats publicly available and on thousands of domains won't be a problem.

    However when creating splogs out of html frameworks that are simply filled by software (which doesn't need to be publicly named here) there is some evidence that identical templates with similar content characteristics can have negative effects. That's why some of those software applications offer what is known as a template spinner, to randomize the html and css of a template and allowing it to be used more effectively across dozens of domains.

    ^There's no support I can openly post on that. It's just something tested, known and understood in the cloaking industry.

    That having been said, wordpress sites don't seem to suffer similar problems as a general rule. I have no technical support for that either.

    ** This was me trying to dance on a line between giving some insight and not selling out private BH communities. Anything further would only be suited for PM's
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    • Profile picture of the author seyer
      Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

      Experience has shown me that it completely depends on saturation.

      Something like a theme thats publicly available and on thousands of domains won't be a problem.

      However when creating splogs out of html frameworks that are simply filled by software (which doesn't need to be publicly named here) there is some evidence that identical templates with similar content characteristics can have negative effects. That's why some of those software applications offer what is known as a template spinner, to randomize the html and css of a template and allowing it to be used more effectively across dozens of domains.

      ^There's no support I can openly post on that. It's just something tested, known and understood in the cloaking industry.

      That having been said, wordpress sites don't seem to suffer similar problems as a general rule. I have no technical support for that either.

      ** This was me trying to dance on a line between giving some insight and not selling out private BH communities. Anything further would only be suited for PM's
      I've had that exact experience on splogs with the same template, and I'm planning to rebuild them after a deindex. Sent you a PM as I'd like to get your thoughts on a project I'm doing.
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    Oh, but also, SEO Crate's take on it is insane.

    Panda and Penguin have nothing to do with themes. That's just some random horseshit theory.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

      That's just some random horseshit theory.
      Hilarious...
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  • Theme wouldn't matter. The only thing a certain theme would do is help CTR and maybe bounce rate. Plugins do help SEO though.
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  • Profile picture of the author kazimuhith
    Themes control the layout of a page . So, ya it matters in terms of SEO. Always use SEO friendly themes.
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