Could Using Wordpress Be Damaging Your Business

by 155 replies
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Just read a post that BIG MIKE made mentioning in passing that using wordpress for your business could be detrimental in the very near future and I am inclined to actually believe this because and have already started using a different platform to be ahead of it if this does happen.

What are your thoughts on this do you think Google could just slap a teddy bear SLAP on all sites hosted with Wordpress. .

Kickin it on Amazon

Gaz Cooper
Amz Training Academy
#main internet marketing discussion forum #business #damaging #wordpress
  • Where can we read this article please?
    I'm not a WP fan anyway unlike most people around here, but just by curiosity... I'd like to have a look at it.
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    • As mentioned in my post it was a passing comment which I actually agreed with and thought ti warranted a thread to get other opinions.

      Lets face it Google could pretty much wipe out most crap by filtering sites made with wordpress although it would be a rather wide sweep since many professional business's also use wordpress.

      maybe wordpress is too big for Google to do this who knows

      Kickin it on Amazon

      Gaz Cooper
      Amz Training Academy
      • [1] reply
  • News flash!! Google plans to punish all websites using HTML!!
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    • Mine is speculation your post indicates you have information to back up your claim can you provide the link to the news flash

      Kickin it on Amazon

      Gaz Cooper
      Amz Training Academy
      • [1] reply
    • This is why I only make plain text pages which are served over the gopher protocol.
    • It's not just HTML - I've heard they've got their eyes on PHP too
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  • Sounds like a stupid speculation.

    Just doesn't make any logical sense, that Google would choose to start penalising wordpress sites.
    • [1] reply
    • The trouble is, Big Mike doesn't speculate stupidly, he speculates rather cleverly. As for making logical sense, there's a possiblility you don't have Mikes's logic. (No rudeness intended, I doubt I have either).

      Besides, people thought Google wouldn't do a lot of things but they did.

      I'm not saying I agree or not but I'm with Fin anyway - Google can do what they like.
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  • I also have it on good authority that the sky is falling....
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  • I feel like Google is punishing everybody these days..
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  • Sounds like paranoia to me .. Google wants quality sites that provide content to people searching for that content.

    Wordpress allows great visibility (to Google) of the real content - frankly they would be crazy to encourage people to move off the platform. It makes their life easier
  • It depends on that content you have posted or used on wordpress.
  • Seems like a dumb move to me. I'd have thought google have the where with all to remove poor sites from their results using some other method, rather than removing everything on the wordpress platform.
    In fact the more I think on it the dumber it seems.
  • With 15 to 20 percent of sites on the Web running WP, it's pretty unlikely that even Google would blindly slap them all. Sounds like FUD to me.
    • [2] replies
    • Who knows? Fortunately, I don't give a fig what Google, in its arrogance decides. It's been many a long year since I kowtowed to Google.

      I love Wordpress and I shall continue using Wordpress. Virtually none of my traffic is Google dependent.
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    • With all due respect.... Total nonsense.

      Fundamentally, Wordpress is just a few pages of PHP, that have caught on and been as templates for thousands of sites. It is beautifully optimized out of the box to give Google all the information it needs to figure out what your site is about, and how relevant and unique it is.

      Google loves Wordpress.
      Matt Cutts himself has even said this.

      Google doesn't hate bloggers OR affiliate marketers who have good content on their sites. If you have a Wordpress site with good content and natural backlinks, you will not be penalized by Google.

      Googles prime concern with search is that people get the information they're looking for, and they're better than ever at doing that.
      Gaming Google for profit is becoming less and less viable.
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  • Banned
    Just to clarify, I posted the following two comments that Gaz mentioned...

    I think you have to consider the possibility of that happening. WP leaves a very obvious footprint regardless of the theme used, it's easy to deploy in volume and widely accepted accepted in IM as the web platform of choice.

    I am also not suggesting that Google is going to slap down every WP site online - I'm simply pointing out that the commercial use of it can easily raise a flag.

    From a purely business perspective, WP has it's share of problems with security, updates and compatibility between plugins/themes.

    I'm not saying the sky is falling, but rather it would be smart to be thinking about the risks involved in using WP down the road.
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    • I see where you're coming from now, but I still don't think Google would go about it in such a way that would compromise all WP driven sites. They may start targeting rubbish sites in general, but there are far too many businesses and well-established websites created with wordpress, for them to come along and penalise them all.

      Who knows though? As has been stated, Google can and will, do what they want.
    • First of all, who really cares? I'm not changing my site because Google wants me to.

      If you get all your traffic/money from Google then that is your fault. You make it your primary means so you have to deal with whatever they do and want.

      If people are that concerned, then worst case they could switch to Drupal.
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  • Here's the truth: Google will penalize wordpress sites that go against their Terms and Conditions.
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  • Hello! I personally don't know and don't see any reasons why, but I'm really interested on where you read this article cause I wanna know more. I've used wordpress with some of my sites and I'm just curious about this.
    • [1] reply
    • If you looked you would see it's been re-posted 4 posts above yours... :confused:

      What the heck does that ^^^ have to do with anything???
  • They said the war would be over by the Christmas in the year started!
  • i absolutely think this is a very real possibility.

    just think about every time the IM community exploits virtually any technology. The end result is a google slap of some sort.

    I remember the days when meta tags were just about the only SEO stuff you could do to get ranked. Then when people exploited what was a perfectly good and honest system, google had to devalue meta tags.

    then you have the whole article marketing stuff. Content distribution marketing has been around for a decades. But when IMers got a hold of it it got distorted to such a point that google basically nuked its value in terms of SEO. I realize not totally, but it got nuked to a large degree.

    anyone remember the days of autoblogs? same thing happened.

    WP is a tool, but its a very easy tool to see who is using it. At some point if it gets exploited enough, I will guarantee that google will add it to the algorithm and it would not be a positive thing.

    I read Big Mikes post that inspired this thread, and his post was really directed at someone looking to start a true authority site. Mike was just raising some legit issues that using WP for such a site might not be the best idea. I totally agree.

    WP is fine for a quick site, but to base a business on that you plan to build and develop for the next 5 to 10 years is just probably not the best idea. if for no other reason than the security issues.

    The one very predictable thing about google is that they will ALWAYS act in their best self interest. That means that if they see a trend with WP sites being problematic, i have no doubt it would be reflected in the rankings.
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    • Or you could become an authority like Mashable (runs on WordPress), and give two hoots to what Google "fancies" to do.

      Becoming someone like Mashable... well, that's a different story. Not the original point of interest of this thread anyway.
  • There would be no reason for Google to target one publishing platform and leave another overlooked. It's all PHP in the end. It's about how you use it, and the quality of the content. I don't understand why people keep forgetting that... If your primary focus is to generate as many links as possible, then expect a nightmare, regardless of your platform.
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    • Banned
      No, it's not all PHP in the end - Google doesn't even see the PHP. Every page served up is a static HTML page that was put together on the server.
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  • Okay, calm down everyone!

    Check this video if you have the time.

    Matt Cutts: Straight from Google

    According to him, "Wordpress automatically solved a ton of SEO issues."

    One of his slides stated that Wordpress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)


    Cheers,
    Louie Tugas
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    • Thanks for the link Louie, but i believe that video is 2009, ya know people have to think about all the Local Mom & Pop business sites run on wordpress etc. Matt Cutts even uses Thesis? So i guess we will know when Matt moves over to Blogger?
  • to all those who are arguing that wp is too widely used to fail.

    private companies don't recognize the relatively recent concept that something can be "too big to fail". Google doesn't care how big wp gets. If google believes that a big enough percentage of people using wp are hurting its end user search results, wp will be nuked.

    We are not really close to that yet in my opinion, but we may be close to that when it comes to some themes and plugins.
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  • No I wouldn't worry about this at all. Google wouldn't punish a whole platform like that. There are too many legit Wordpress based authority sites out there. Google will just punish weak little sites with no valuable content.

    If you got great content on your site then you're going to be fine. That's just my opinion though, we'll see what happens.
  • Haha, that was a funny post. If google ever made the silly mistake of punishing wordpress then you will have millions upon millions of people, that's just a fraction of the number of people using wordpress to power their websites. But thanks for the laugh lol
  • Every speculative post on why Google would punish WordPress is strictly from the standpoint of theory, without any practical reasoning behind it. Whether they intend to focus on a specific publishing platform is probably only the first step in identifying whether they should rank the content of the site, which is why search engines were built in the first place.
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    • I am not sure why people actually think that site content is the only or maybe even the primary SEO attribute.

      We all know that many factors other than content affect a sites ranking, so i have no idea why anyone would think that "the platform" is totally out of bounds or would never be considered.

      Since the first of the year, i have been testing a theory that google is indeed using factors similar to this in its rankings. I do have some statistically relevant data to show that using certain ESP's (email service providers) may actually impacts rankings.

      I am not, nor have i ever been in the IM niche. But over many years, i have watched the IM niche ruin many good things.

      I rely on ESP's for my business, and I do have some reason to believe (statistics) that letting google see you are using certain ESP's does have affects on SEO.

      I am no where near ready to come out and make "the death of XXX esp" report...(i will let ryan deiss do that...lol). But you are crazy if you think google is not watching stuff like this..
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  • Why do people insist on thinking up hypothetical scenarios and then arguing with each other about them?

    The idea that Google would penalise a site just because it's built with WP sounds retarded. There are tens of thousands of normal businesses (probably more) that have their site built with WP. A blanket penalty wouldn't make any sense. Could they do it? sure - they can do what they want.

    I'm all for thinking ahead, but coming up with highly unlikely random scenarios and then feeling the need to try and rationalise it when challenged is a waste of time. If you have lots of time to think of things that could go wrong, surely there are other more likely things before you drag the bottom of the barrel for stuff like this?

    Worrying about things that probably won't happen doesn't make sense, just keep your eyes open and be ready to react if something does happen. No need to worry ahead of time with some real evidence to suggest things are going to change.
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    • YES!! Finally some sense, and from the UK too
    • Banned
      I seemed to recall hearing something like that about Blogger.com sites just before tens of thousands of them got whacked. And Hub Pages and many Article Directories and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

      Oh, and MFA sites by the hundreds of thousands...

      While it may sound retarded to you, given the history of how Google has reacted to virtually every system IM'ers have used over the years, I think it makes good business sense to stop and consider the possibility.

      As WP sites become associated with spam sites more and more, it's inevitable that Google will do something, especially as IM becomes saturated with them.

      Actually, a lot of marketers using shared hosting on HG and other hosts have gotten slapped over the years.

      But the moment it leaves the server, it becomes static - just pure HTML. For all intents and purposes, the page cannot be changed at that point, so it's no longer dynamic.

      Just semantics perhaps, but it's the script that's dynamic, not the HTML. HTTP is stateless with no persistence, so a served page can't be dynamic by protocol.

      Yes, we can talk about JavaScript and AJAX, but that presupposes that it's enabled and even then, most bots don't run JS when parsing the page.

      And that is what I see as exactly the real concern. In and of itself, WordPress isn't a problem.

      The real problem is the way IM'ers focus on exploiting everything they can for traffic/profit that invariably causes problems. These are the types of things Google focuses on.

      WP is clearly the most common platform used (and abused) in IM, so I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that Google might eventually begin flagging WP sites for additional scrutiny. Every plugin or theme that's essentially built to game SERP's is going to get flagged sooner or later - I'll bet a six-pack of coke on that.

      For me at least, this is really the crux of the issue - developing a sustainable authority site that's going to be viable 10 years down the road.

      Honestly, how many of those today are built on WP?

      Using it to slap together an affiliate site or membership is fine - those don't need the flexibility or the control that only an original solution can provide.

      Personally, I don't have anything against WordPress as a platform, other than some developer frustration with its limitations. But it's also not a platform I'd ever recommend for the purpose of a stable, long-term authority site.

      While this thread has exploded with arguments on either side of the OP, if it's gotten anyone to really stop and think about it, then I'd say it's served it's purpose.
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  • I heard Google is going to penalize sites that are on the internet. Something to consider I think.
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  • Probably just me but I enjoy hypothetical discussions. Beats the normal posts you see everyday like how to get traffic to my site or how to increase sales etc.
  • It is possible - perhaps Google can start seeing WP as "over-optimization" especially if combined with some of the available SEO plugins.
  • algorithm changes have always come with (usually) short term unintended consequences. I mean there truly is no way to test a full algo change without having a few million users give you feedback.

    But honestly, so far they have adapted far better than anyone else. IMers tried to exploit google with autoblogs and un-readable spun content, backlink farms/loops, and many many more.

    Their algo changes have managed to do a decent job of making those things a thing of the past for the most part. i realize they exist, but the algo changes have made it not very profitable for most.

    Of course some good sites always get caught up with algo changes. There is no way to avoid that. Not for google or whoever is the search leader 10 years from now.

    This idea that google is out to get people is just nuts. Those of us who run businesses that provide real value to customers see our rankings increase with almost every algo change.

    its those that are playing games that by in large get hit the hardest. And i will tell you that from my experience, google is or will be fighting a battle to largely remove many if not most pure affiliate sites from its results.

    Lets be very honest, most of those sites don't add much value. What do most of us experienced guys do when we hit what we know is a pure affiliate site...we leave. we know whats up with those sites.

    i work closely with a very big hosting company. that industry is notorious for "thin" top 10 web hosts affiliate type sites. if you were google do you really want those type of sites to be in the top 10.

    Google searchers don't want to see that crap. they either want real review sites or the merchants themselves. And lets be honest, there are very few real review sites who are actually getting their own reviews and not just republishing whats found others places like amazon.

    IMers don't like it, but a big percentage of those that call themselves IMers are not adding much true value, and google knows it.
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  • Wordpress is simply a tool for spamming Google with useless articles. It will be blocked and you would be insane to use it for your business.
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    • I really hope you're being sarcastic.
      Hard to tell.
  • Lots of marketers use Hostgator, so maybe Google could put a slap on anyone who uses Hostgator hosting. Better switch hosts.

    I've also noticed that a lot of marketers use Linux web hosts. Maybe Google would penalize anyone who uses a Linux web server. Better use Windows or BSD.

    Maybe Google will penalize people who use PHP, gzip compression, Dallas datacenters, favicons, blogger.com, javascript, HTML 4, PDFs, red anchor text, PNG images, or HTML tables.
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    • your sites ip address does already affect seo. so if you are on shared hosting with HG or any other host, then your seo is already affected by others on the same ip to a small degree at this point.

      Also sharing the same ip or even class C ip with "bad neighbors" also has negative seo affects.

      Your sites loading speed affects seo, which can be affected by lots of things related to your hosting or data center.

      blogger.com was also hit by some of the algo changes in the past.

      there are several things dealing with images that do have some affect on seo currently.

      there are some javascripts that will have negative affects on your seo.

      SEO algorithms are crazy advanced. They include all sorts of stuff.
      • [1] reply
    • Shared hosting can get you penalized, depending on the other "tenants".

      But I say you get penalized for using Windows anyway, so....
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    • Great post. You really illustrated the flaw with the argument against WP.
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  • Feels good not to rely on Google anymore
  • My first post on the WF in a long long time. Just happened to land on this thread. With Google you never know. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. And what didn't work yesterday may work today. It's a bit dumb to speculate on all this. But I will join in the dummy speculation crowd taking place here in this thread and say that Google will not target or penalize Wordpress itself. Maybe a plugin but not the CMS itself.

    George
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  • While doing some research on this topic, I came across a video of the head of Google's webspam team actually discussing the awesomeness of wordpress and why you're smart for using it. He does discuss the terrible sites as well. Sure its from 2009, but its interesting.

    Quite a great 45 minutes to be honest. Am I aloud to link to it? I am in no way associated with this website, its just so relevant to this discussion. Any problems with posting the link I can remove it.

    the247entrepreneur.com/jan-2010/seo-friendly-blogs/
  • Simply using the self-hosted version of WordPress is not going to damage your business by means from the search engines. It's just a blogging platform, that some people extend into being a light-weight CMS. They could attack Wordpress.com, however, but that is not the self-hosted version from WordPress.org.
  • Banned
    Almost as retarded as penalizing sites for backlinks that site owners have no control over.

    Last I checked, Google was comprised of human beings, and human beings are imperfect creatures....even those who work at Google. Plenty of big companies that also had lot's of smart people working for them have come crashing down for doing stupid things.

    Penguin had nothing to do with quality, no matter how many times folks repeat it. It was nothing more than retribution against seo'ers. That's why they, in part, focused on back links instead of...you know....actual quality.
  • I think Google guys are smart enough to think of a way to use the huge footprint WP leaves without sacrificing the rankings of quality sites that run on WP.

    As an example, you could penalize the sites that have more than 50% (an absolutely random number for the sake of example) of incoming links from other WP sites. A pattern like that would, in a lot of cases, indicate that the site in question is a "money site" (as they are called in IM) and is being linkjuice-fed from another tier of sites that are created purely for manipulating the search engine results.

    That's just one example.

    The solution, obviously, is to continue to diversify your links and include sites that are not powered by WP, but are plain html, joomla, typo3 or what have you.
  • So just today I showed a client how to do things in minutes that they had been pulling their hair out trying to force Wordpress to do for... Months! Then had another message from a client who's underqualified webmaster had been faking their way along with no clue and in over their head (this is a seven figure business they are running) and only got the help they need when I contacted the client to let them know their webmaster was wasting their time and money. The client called in another qualified team member only to discover their Wordpress was hacked and now they need a security and recovery specialist.

    These scenarios are all too common. In fact the scenario where a blog gets hacked and the outsourced staff or owner has no clue and blames issues on third party service or plugin or theme providers is all to common.

    Sadly many of these scenarios could be fairly easily avoided with more simple business practices, better security, and smarter methods.

    The popularity of Wordpress has caused people to overcomplicate their business and negatively impact their bottom line in innumerable ways. It's a great tool when used right... The problem is many do not use it right.
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  • I don't think Google would ever "slap" WordPress sites in general.

    If, however, they find that 70, 80, 90% of crap sites that they penalize are using the WordPress platform then it would make sense that they would add a "flag" to take a closer look at sites using that platform.

    Add to that the preponderance of SEO manipulations being attempted by plugins designed specifically for Wordpress it would be surprising if Google did NOT do something to flag Wordpress sites and at least take a closer look.

    I do think it's POSSIBLE that it might be safer to build new sites on a different platform in the future.

    Wordpress is pretty slick but there are plenty of other great ways to build a website and many with big advantages over WordPress .

    Maintaining WordPress is a pain and really pretty ridiculous if you've been building sites for many years.

    We never worried about upgrading a website every few months before WordPress came along.
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  • Drinkning Milk Cause Worst Things
    NEver saw Saw many BS in one post
  • Wordpress is ,from a security point of view, a remote shell with blogging features. (don't know where I heard that anymore but it makes a lot of sense actually)
  • I think WordPress more powerful for every Business. But need better theme and CMS
  • Too many people are worried about giving
    Google what it wants -

    And not enough people are worried about
    giving users what THEY want.

    The irony is, that latter takes care of the
    former.

    If people would simply stop trying to game
    the system with ****, everything gets
    better.

    Stop trying to dump more sugar on ****.

    In other words, Google isn't the problem
    Stupid.

    I wish Allen would emerge and start slapping
    some people around. He never, EVER, would
    have advocated that anyone build a
    business on SEO traffic in the first place.

    Am I wrong?

    You know, somewhere along the line
    the original value system of this community
    got hijacked. It's become a place full of
    people trying to get by at the lowest common
    denominator.

    Is THAT what a Warrior is? Not in my book
    and it's why I've distanced myself from the
    mindset that's now prevalent here. It's
    a virus, an infection.

    Not everyone has it - but too many.

    X
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  • Ok we can't say never cause really we can't predict the future however i'm %99.999999999 sure that this will never happen, even Zillow Premier Agent Website adopted wordpress just recently, can you imagine all real-estate sites will be slapped simply cause they use "x" CMS and it would be kinda funny if matt's blog gets banned as well since he uses wp as well.
    keep in mind that the majority of sites/blogs using worpress are legit... can you see google banning techcrunch or any of the sites on here Notable WordPress Users — WordPress.com
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  • wait are you talking about wordpress.com or wordpress.org ?
  • I think it is possible that google will start to target blogs.

    Look at what happened to article marketing nobody thought that some of the big article marketing sites would ever get targeted by a google update but it happened.

    At the same time people were just posting a lot of junk in article directories trying to pass it off as "good quality content" so something had to be done about it.
    Same with blogs I'm starting to see some blogs that are just being used for that purpose.

    I think that if you are posting good quality content you should be safe. If something like this were to happen so to speak.
  • Big Mike will be gone before Wordpress.

    Wow! The crap that comes out of some people's mouths. There are probably close to a billion WP installations. I use it exclusively and will continue to do so and recommend it. It rocks.

    My latest trend domain, South Beach Cannibal » Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The South Beach Cannibal - With Pictures is ranked #3 in Google a week after I bought it. There ain't no easier/better way and there likely never will be.
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    • Banned
      You obviously didn't read the entire thread - at no time did I ever say or suggest that WP would be gone.

      But then again, maybe you are right about the crap that comes out of some people's mouths :rolleyes:
  • GOOGLE BLACKLISTED MY WORDPRESS BLOG BECAUSE IT WAS INFECTED WITH MALWARE

    They completely removed it from their search engine listings

    Protect your blog before it happens to you!

    Below are a few free wordpress plugins that should help.

    bulletproof-security
    limit-login-attempts
    wordpress-firewall-2
    wp-security-scan

    The best way to solve this type of problem is to always have a complete
    backup of your blog.

    This way, if you can not remove the malware, you can always delete the blog
    and restore the complete blog system
  • Bad idea.. Most of the websites nowadays are using wordpress..
    What will happen to those sites now?
  • I'm no expert I've been at this game about a year and in that time have seen so many changes in the algorithms it's hard to keep up with it all.
    I think Google are capable of implementing major changes at any time, it's not about hating the 'little guy, it's not about improving the search engine results - it's all about the filthy lucre! the bottom line for Google is making money.

    I also have read on a couple of the post penguin analysis reports [ sorry I can't remember where] that some of the cookie cutter 'review site' WordPress themes may have been penalized in the latest algo change..so maybe the writing is on the wall.
    Personally I hope Big Mike is wrong because I use WordPress exclusively but using other platforms as well as not basing my income around Google are two areas I'm seriously looking into.
  • Matt Cutts uses WordPress on his site. He uses a Thesis Theme.

    Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
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  • This is only the case if you depend on google.

    Apart from that, this is the usual 'death of' scenario that gets posted regularly on the warrior forum.

    Like everything with google, if you provide quality, google will reward you.

    Sure, spammy pages with scraped content (from that new plugin you just bought) might get hit. Otherwise people should be okay.

    -Simon
  • They are very powerful and great looking websites built with wordpress. Some of these sites are been run by big corporations. The fact is, because wordpress is free, many spammers are misusing it.
  • Google owns Blogger.....therefore, I can't see that happening without google getting slapped around by certain government organizations for antitrust behaviour.
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    • Forgive me Floyd, I may have missed something but this is about Wordpress, which Google doesn't own, not Blogger.
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  • Why would Google punish WordPress?

    Because...

    Google = The #1 Dominatrix of the Internet

  • I don't think it will "slap" wordpress as a platform. That just won't happen. What may happen, is that you will have profiling, and wordpress sites may come under more scrutiny than usual. I'd expect to see a great number of sites drop off the map because of the profiling.

    As for using it for a business; I'd have to agree with Mike on this one. No. Many businesses do incorporate WP into their sites, but the core content isn't based on WP. It just looks bad and unprofessional. We use it because it it is so user friendly, but it is very restrictive. I personally, hate it. I do like the pages feature in it but not the "blog" portion of it.

    Will WP get waylaid by Google? Probably not. Will sites that use WP come under scrutiny? It is quite possible. Will your site get de-indexed because of this? That is also a possibility, however correct or incorrect it may seem. After the latest update, my main site took a tanker for a while and happened to bounce back better than ever. That is the ebb and flow of these updates.

    "When you're pulling weeds you're going to get some grass". That is the nature of the business.
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    • I'm not sure you can make a blanket statement like "all WP business sites look unprofessional." With proper planning and execution, WP can be used as the engine driving very professional-looking business sites. Do it right, and only an expert inspecting a page or post's source code can tell WP is the CMS.

      With that said, I will stipulate that WP makes it very easy to create sites that look unprofessional or worse. Look at all the threads just in the forum asking about "free [niche or market] themes." They grab the same theme as hundreds or thousands of other sites in the same niche based on pretty pictures, without realizing that many of these are either shoddy or even infected with stuff they don't want.

      I'll also stipulate that too many people try to force WP into doing things it was never intended to do. Take the humble squeeze page, for example. Why would anyone go through the bother of setting up a database and CMS for a one or two page site? Seems like that would be like trying to enter a Clydesdale in the Kentucky Derby.

      But I can't agree with the blanket statement that using WP for a business site is unprofessional.
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  • I've already taken preemptive measures against the god awful design of wordpress and maybe even blogs in general.

    Google likely ALREADY DOES PENALIZE for wordpress blogs...They have nothing against Wordpress or the number of people using it. It's all about the internal SEO design.

    You have your main PAGE....You put a post. It gets put on the main page, category page, post page, and author page...So there are 3-5 pages where the same content gets repeated (same site duplicate content can't be good...This is totally different from article syndication) depending on your setup.

    Many who are semi-aware use post snippets on there main/category page, but this isn't a 100% solution.

    I use 1 Post on Main page that has a noindex attached to the actual POST page. Its uncategorized and I exclude this category from XML sitemap.

    Then my category page also has one sticky post on it and also a noindex to that stickies POST page.

    All the other posts, are regular single post pages, and they just link to the home page and category page...These posts literally only occupy one page on the site, as they dont get displayed on it's parent category page like a normal blog does.

    Then I remove all other pages like author page+archive pages.

    And my XML file only shows the pages I want and excludes the duplicate content for a bonus.

    Just something to think about.
  • I think there's way to much speculation going on in this thread! Whether or not Google (or any other behemoth company) comes along and screws stuff up is out of our control, so I don't see the point in stressing over something that may or may not even come to pass. I suppose if you have the time and resources to convert all your sites to something else, and you rely heavily on Google, go for it! But you won't hear me complaining or worrying about it.

    Here's my philosophy: Life is full of bumps in the road, some we can see, some we can't. So just pay attention, be a courteous driver and watch out for the old the young and the drunk!
  • So, I guess all these users are going to be screwed!

    Notable WordPress Users — WordPress.com

    I think this thread should have been started on April 1.
  • I don't think using Wordpress would damage your business. It's one of the best CMS around and big sites like Mashable are using Wordpress so i don't think it would actually damage your business.
  • While there are a hundred strong points in this thread, Google isn't one to just slap a large flux of websites because of a certain platform. As much as people complained that the latest Penguin/Panda updates killed internet marketers... it only killed the ones taking shortcuts.

    I've started diversifying almost all my traffic over the last 2 or so months from 99 percent organic down to about 50 percent. Needless to say, if you are providing extremely great content it WILL get shared. Even on my completely Amazon product review sites I see tons of referrals coming in from email clients and random websites linking to my review.

    It was said in here before- stop trying to think about what Google wants and look for what your user wants - that's ultimately what Google wants anyways...
  • I personally wouldn't think Google will do this in the near future. There are so many websites with great quality content that is hosted with Wordpress.

    By doing so, Google is only hurting their own business.
    • [1] reply
    • Sorry Floyd.

      Reading what you originally wrote again I can see what you said. I didn't read that as you wrote it I'm afraid.

      I stand corrected .
      • [1] reply
  • I can't see Google punishing sites based on what platform they are built on. However, I could see how they can start having a closer look at sites using certain plugins, or incorporating techniques like exit pop ups, or having several sign up forms on every page etc.
  • It would be nice to see Google die a painful, fiery death. Go Duck Go!
  • Can you link us the article please?
    • [1] reply
    • I think some people here are over estimating the impact that small time IMers and their content have on the larger online ecosystem.

      I have only recently started to look at IM again seriously after a break of a few years. Outside places like WF no one cares what you are doing or thinks about IM. They might use the services offered by IMers but they are not thinking of you as an industry anymore than they ponder the visual merchandising industry when they go to buy some cereal. We are a tiny drop in a very large ocean filled with all types of content delivered by all kinds of platforms.

      Sure some IMers are a pain in the ass for search engines, but they are not going to punish all users of a particular CMS (54% of websites running on a CMS are WP) we are not that important! Imagine the party Microsoft would have if Google slapped a huge chunk of the online environment and suddenly there was a reason to use Bing!

      If you are really worried about Google penalties then ask yourself why? If you have good content, a well built site and are not using unethical or unnatural looking ranking practices you should be right. (If you have picked a popular niche you might not get to page one, but life is tough sometimes)

      If your content is copied and pasted content with a bit of spin and some extra keywords stuffed in, your site is hard to navigate and full of broken links or your idea of SEO is linkfarms, blog spamming or link blasting software, then clean up your act and sleep easier.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • compared to the blogspot in my opinion much better and is powered by wordpress
  • Just started back using WP niche sites, i am a moderate expert with Wordpress going back some 15 years but got a bit disillusioned with it and started building HTML sites. However, recent updates to both WP and niche marketing tactics have got me back on the WP bandwagon.

    I now love WP again and think that for ease of use and flexibility it has got to be the #1 platform for bloggers and IM sites. Just a word of caution you do need to have a good web host and not install tooo many plugins as it can speed down your site and Google monitors load speed as a post Panda ranking factor, so be aware.

    Also, recently purchased the AMZ training academy for some research into my own Amazon niche sites membership program and have to say that Gaz's training is first class, well done Gaz

    Carla J.
  • I don't believe its true, wordpress is just a platform like blogger. It would be unjust to penalize sites just because they are hosted on wordpress, besides it doesn't make much sense.
  • I doubt Google will punish website owners using wordpress, particular plugins or themes maybe but not the platform. Wordpress powers something like 16% or more of the worlds websites, there is little to no chance Google is going to slap wordpress users!
  • No, I don't think using WP can be damaging to your business.

    There are a lot of sites using Wordpress already and most of them have very high quality. Slapping the engine that runs the site will not do Google any good.

    However, it might happen that Google will slap a site that runs spammy content using Wordpress.

    It's not about the engine that runs the site, but its more about the content.
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    Could Using Wordpress Be Damaging Your Business

    Just read a post that BIG MIKE made mentioning in passing that using wordpress for your business could be detrimental in the very near future and I am inclined to actually believe this because and have already started using a different platform to be ahead of it if this does happen. What are your thoughts on this do you think Google could just slap a teddy bear SLAP on all sites hosted with Wordpress. .