After just a month, our Search Engine Optimization test is already producing some really interesting results.
Our WordPress test site already has a sizeable lead with Drupal in second place and Joomla quite a way behind. On the most important ranking (top ten rankings in Google), the WordPress site is twice as successful as Drupal and three times more so than Joomla.
The overall score is calculated using WebCEO, and is based upon a website’s top-5, top-10, top-20, top-30 rankings.
{moschart id=8}
So, is this a fluke so far?
Yes – Jabalpur has fewer results in Google than either of the other two cities which means it may be easier for it to rank more highly. This may help explain Jabalpur’s low number of visits despite it’s high rankings.
Yes – As these sites only have 8 pages each, the success or failure of just one page can make a big difference.
Yes – Its too early to produce real results. MSN and Yahoo have not begun to rank the sites yet.
No – We ran WordPress and Drupal out-of-the-box but added an extra search engine-friendly URL component to Joomla. The results for Joomla might have been even lower had we truly used it out-of-the-box or with the default search engine-friendly URLs.
No – We ran two more sites, one in WordPress and another in Joomla. The results were very similar.
No – Jabalpur actually had a much larger lead early on. After two weeks the results were even further apart than they were after four weeks. Does Google perhaps realise the difference between software designed for a blog and software designed for a CMS, and then punish the blog if it is not regularly update? We shall see in the coming months…
- As promised we will shortly be adding a Drupal 5.0 site and also a Joomla 1.5 site when it is released.
- We hope these test results will prove to be interesting and are open to suggestions for improving the study.
While these initial results seem to sugges that Joomla and Drupal are not as well optimized for SEO as they might be, I certainly don’t believe they mean that a Joomla or Drupal website is doomed to rank lowly in the search engines. As has been often said, content is what will bring you good rankings. A good Drupal or Joomla site will provide a much better long-term platform for large amounts of content than will WordPress. However, those considering moving to Drupal or Joomla need to bear in mind that you may need to focus on closely on your new sites’s SEO.