Google search lawyer John Mueller says that WordPress isn’t inherently better for SEO than coding a website from scratch.
In response to a Reddit thread, Google Search Advocate John Mueller says there is no inherent SEO benefit to using WordPress over coding a website yourself.
A thread in the r/SEO forum asks a familiar question many professionals run into in their careers.
Is WordPress better for SEO than coding your website?
Other variations of this question include: “Is WordPress better for SEO than Wix” or “Is WordPress better for SEO than [insert CMS here]?”
No matter how you ask it, the answer is always the same.
WordPress is not inherently better for SEO than any other option. It is one of many ways to create a website that ranks on Google.
Mueller On WordPress For SEO
In response to the question of whether using WordPress is better for SEO than coding your site, Mueller says:
“Not for SEO, but you can focus more on content if you don’t spend all your time creating a new CMS for yourself. (some people prefer to create a CMS, then YMMV).”
As Mueller says, the most significant benefit that WordPress offers is ease of use over hand coding.
However, this is only beneficial to the website owner. For Google it makes no difference whether a website is built with WordPress.
This question comes up often and is worth revisiting due to the misinformation circulating about WordPress and SEO.
For example, take the second most upvoted comment in the Reddit thread directly below Mueller’s.
One individual claims, “Google knows WordPress well,” as if Googlebot can crawl WordPress sites more efficiently than other CMSs.
That’s false, even though the myth that WordPress is better for SEO still persists.
Screenshot from reddit.com/r/seo, December 2022.
For more information on the SEO features of WordPress compared to other content management systems, check out this article by SEJ founder Loren Baker.
Baker lists the top 25 SEO-friendly alternatives to WordPress and the pros and cons of each:
Featured image Melisa Parlak/Shutterstock
Matt G. Southern
Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal
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Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, …
What are the top 3 Google searches?
| Receive our daily newsletter from SEJ founder Loren Baker on the latest industry news! | # | Keyword |
|---|---|---|
| Search volume | 1 | |
| 144,000,000 | 2 | Youtube |
| 143,000,000 | 3 | amazon |
| 119,000,000 | 4 | weather |
95,300,000
What is the top 20 search engines?
What is the top search on Google 2022? Google has released its annual “Year in Search” report outlining the top searches for 2022 around the world. The report reveals that the popular online game Wordle topped the list globally.
- List of search engines
- Google.
- Youtube.
- 3.Yahoo.
- Bing.
- Baidu.
- Yandex.
- DuckDuckGo.
ask.com.
What are the 3 types of search engines?
Is Bing better than Google? Bing offers users more autocomplete suggestions than Google does. Bing offers users eight while Google offers four. This is especially useful if you are using autocomplete to search for alternative products or when searching for wildcard suggestions. Compared to Google, Bing has significantly better video search.
There are three main types of search engines, web crawlers, directories and sponsored links. Search engines typically use a number of methods to gather and retrieve results. These include: Database crawlers.
What are the examples of search engine?
What is a search engine 3 examples? A search engine is a web-based tool that allows users to locate information on the World Wide Web. Popular examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search.
Popular examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search. Search engines use automated software applications (referred to as robots, bots, or spiders) that travel the web, following links from page to page, site to site.
Is SEO writing hard?
What is the search engine that gives 5 examples? A search engine is a platform on which a user can search for internet content. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu and DuckDuckGo are popular search engines. Google is one of the most used search engines in the world which is used with the Chrome browser. So, almost everyone knows him.