Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do Wordpress sites outrank SquareSpace?
-
I was a big fan of Wordpress. I used it for 10 years. However, because I run a very small business, the constant upkeep needed on WP in the end started to frustrate me in the end, so I moved to SquareSpace.
However, I am beginning to question my decision, as one of my sites is struggling really badly, and I mean badly. The other sites are okay.
So I started asking around, and most people are saying there shouldn't be a difference. A few people have said their Wordpress sites always outranks their SquareSpace sites. Then I read what Rand Fishkin said in the below Twitter thread, now I am even more confused. I am very reluctant to move to Wordpress, its just so much hassle. But at the same time, if a site doesn't get much traffic then it's useless.
https://twitter.com/drew_pickard/status/991659074134556673
https://twitter.com/randfish/status/991974456477278209
Please let me know your thoughts and experience.
-
The logic for both platforms is sound.
In our experience WordPress smashes Square space. WordPress is our SEO platform of choice. We also see Magento, just marginally sitting above Shopify for SEO. Shopify does not have https2 at its root etc.
Good luck, they are always tough decisions.
-
Hi Alex, Thanks for your response. I agree with you. I know WP has a larger market share, even then, I don't remember the last time I saw SS site rank. However, I have noticed Shopify doesn't seem to be affected by the same curse
I have seen many Shopify sites rank really well, or is that just me! Because I am considering Shopify for another project.
I was weighing up moving to WP, and your response and some other factors from my research and gut instinct have more or sealed the deal for me. I am going to move this site back to WP. However, I will continue to keep some of my sites on SS. A few are not doing too badly.
But the site in question is definitely moving.
-
From my experience, Google does tend to like Wordpress websites. I haven't seen a lot of SquareSpace websites in the top 10 of Google, to be honest, and maybe there's a reason for that. Either way, I'm not telling you to go back to Wordpress but if these are your only two options and your website is suffering... there's not much else you can do.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to find out that none of the images on my site violates copyrights? Is there any tool that can do this without having to check manually image by image?
We plan to add several thousand images to our site and we outsourced the image search to some freelancers who had instructions to just use royalty free pictures. Is there any easy and quick way to check that in fact none of these images violates copyrights without having to check image by image? In case there are violations we are unaware of, do you think we need to be concerned about a risk of receiving Takedown Notices (DMCA) before owner giving us notification for giving us opportunity to remove the photo?
Web Design | | lcourse1 -
Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL
Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag. Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time. I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's. I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools. My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site? Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag. Does Google ignore the hashtag? Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects? How serious is this? Thanks in advancing.
Web Design | | limited70 -
Moving to new site. Should I take old blog posts with me?
Our company website has needed a complete overhaul for some time now and the new one is almost ready to go live. We also have a separate "news" site that is houses around 800 blog posts and news items. (That news site will be thrown away because it's on a completely different domain and causes confusion.) So we have a main site with about 100 decent blog posts and a separate news site with 800 poor posts. I plan on bringing all the main site blog posts over to the new site (both WordPress), but my question is whether or not to bring over the news site posts? All, handful, none? Another issue is the news site doesn't have Google Analytics, so I'm not sure if any posts actually generate traffic, but I can from the main site we do get some referrals from it. As far as quality of content goes, it's poor. Not sure who wrote it all, but it's mainly text press releases that aren't very interesting. Is it worth bringing over for SEO purposes or simply delete the site and create a mass redirect so all of those pages will direct to the new website's blog page? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | codyfrew0 -
How to bounce back after a new url & new site design?
About a month ago, my company changed domains (from the long-established www.imageworksstudio.com to the new www.imageworkscreative.com) and also did a complete overhaul of our site. We tried to do everything necessary to keep Google happy as we went through this change, but we've suffered a drastic loss of both rankings and traffic. I know that can happen as a result of a redesign AND as a result of a new domain, but I'm wondering how long you would expect it to take before we bounced back and also, what can we do in the meantime to improve?
Web Design | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Site Activity, SEO, and behind login
I have a site that provides online education and as such, most of the user activity happens behind a login. This has me thinking about potential SEO impacts with a few questions that maybe someone could lend some light on: How important is activity (above just search activity) to the search engines Would it help to enter these pages, even though they're behind a login, into GA as we have with the front-end of the site Does a subdomain make a difference (right now we implement the course as a subdomain of the main site Lastly, as I was looking at compete.com, I am wondering how they get these use statistics?
Web Design | | uwaim20120 -
Missing Meta Description Tag - Wordpress Tag
I am going through my crawl diagonostics issues and I have lots of "Missing Meta Description Tags". However when I look at the url's they are Wordpress Tags, which do not have a meta description. Shall I just ignore these errors or should I find a way to add a meta description? Is it important?
Web Design | | petewinter0 -
Mobile Site Pages: Word Count Help
Hi there I am doing a mobile website for a client and they asked me what the dieal word count would be per page. They are SEO conciosu but we are not doing SEO on this site. I would just like to know a general rule of thumb. Regards Stef
Web Design | | stefanok0 -
Best Wordpress Hosting
I've had a horrible experience with the security on wordpress hosting with GoDaddy. Someone recommended Blue Host as my next option. Does anyone have any experience with BlueHost and what other hosting companies would you recommend for wordpress hosting?
Web Design | | ChristineCadena0