Hello, I use Blogger so this is all very interesting for me. I'm confused about the solution to label pages problem. Could you please explain the following solution:
"Have excerpts on the label pages" - what exactly does this mean and how would one achieve it? Don't label pages already list all the blog posts, and what's the point of adding excerpts if they won't be indexed?
"Possibly noindex the label pages with either meta noindex or robots.txt noindex" - again, isn't robots.txt already disallowing indexing of /search on Blogger blogs, and do you mean that there is a way to modify robots.txt on a Blogger blog?
"Add nofollow to all external links on the label pages, both in the content and sidebar" - at first I thought you meant add nofollow TO labels in content and sidebar, but then I re-read it and got even more confused... Since label pages contain blog posts in them, how would I go nofollowing external links in label pages but NOT in normal post pages if those links are inside blog posts?
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
None of those actions were intended for you - they are really all something that has to be done by Blogger themselves.
The noindex is optional, though would be better to have them indexed and possibly pulling in content globally as well.
The only thing Blogger users can do about labels themselves is stop using them, and work out some other way to create topical sitemaps manually.
Would it help if I added rel="nofollow" to every label link on my blog? Should be pretty easy to do, I just wonder if there's any point.
Or adding meta noindex via using the "if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'" hack in the head (I've read some people got this working, but it seems to give me an error). If Blogger would have a label pagetype then it would be no problem adding noindex yourself.
But is noindex necessary when robots.txt is already blocking label pages?
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
There is no point in using meta noindex on a page blocked with robots.txt disallow, because Google spiders will never see it. If someone has been publishing some kind of hack, it is totally worthless.
If there is a way to nofollow the label links then that works, though you still need a viable solution to get deep pages indexed with the date based archives (e.g. Rick's blog), custom made category pages, or somehow using a 3rd party site in some kind of ping-pong arrangement, grabbing the RSS feeds, and effectively creating your own tag space.
Andrew
· 6 months ago
Well, I simply changed rel='tag' to rel='tag nofollow' in Edit HTML of my Blogger blog (rel can have multiple values separated with spaces so it's okay). Now all label links are nofollow. I already am using Archive widget too, so no trouble there.
I was also wondering if I'd benefit from adding "noindex, follow" to all archive pages. You see, Google indexes archive pages of Blogger which is duplicate content, plus they sometimes even rank in SERPs instead of my actual item pages. But I still want Google to follow links inside archives so it can reach my older posts to index them. Is "noindex, follow" a valid combination?
Mikael Rieck
· 6 months ago
Luckily I never got started on Blogger but I feel your pain (in your writing as well). One can only wonder why Google would not fix these problems as they are obviously hurting their service and I am sure they would be able to quickly find a solution that would work for everyone.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
I feel more pain for readers - ultimately I can work around the minor redirect problems, not that the links are very important
Rick Klau
· 6 months ago
Andy - thanks for raising these issues. Your tweet from a few weeks ago was very helpful in surfacing a few issues, and I'm working through several (including the ones you raise above). I'll provide an update shortly, and hope to have good resolutions to several of the problems you've identified.
Appreciate the input. Stay tuned.
Alison Kerr
· 6 months ago
I have to say I didn't understand most of that, except that Blogger really is no use when it comes to SEO, which I'd figured out, though it took me a while. I'm about to launch a new blog with self-hosted Wordpress. Since I have very, very few links in to my blog I reckon I'll just start over basically, but with a nice collection of articles to import.
When I started with Blogger I foolishly thought that because it is owned by Google this would be an advantage. How wrong! The only SEO traffic I get is stuff for really obscure combinations of words. The one thing that made me happy was how quickly Google knew about my new content, but since it is totally devalued for SEO that is no use at all!
I reckon that if you're on Blogger you should just get out as soon as you can figure out how to, unless you are only blogging for your family and a few friends.
If you've got any tips related to importing to Wordpress I'd love to hear them. You can tweet me at @alisonkerr.
Alex Schoenfeldt
· 6 months ago
This article was technically over my head. I was going to ask a question about how to fix this, but I realize I don't have much invested in blogger. I build sites all over to ad juice to my main domain for my photography business (found here: San Francisco Photographers).
Should I just skip blogger altogether if I am doing this?
Thanks, Alex
venkat
· 6 months ago
WordPress blogs are optimized for SEO and blogspot blogs can not why?can Google consider this in future and give more features to Blogspot blog as there for wordpress blogs.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
To be quite honest, if you follow 95% of tutorials teaching you how to SEO WordPress, you would end up with what is currently the situation with Blogspot
Seosapien
· 6 months ago
What about all the duplicated content it generates through the archives, tags, front page post and actual post and almost no control over the URLs. It is incredible how to blogger programmers lack of common SEO knowledge.
Almost everything can be fixed manually but it still is a pain in the A$$ and light years behind wordpress.
EzyBlogger
· 6 months ago
Although I started blogging with blogspot as with many other bloggers, I have since moved to self hosted wordpress.
However, I still do appreciate blogspot blogs as it is easier for newbies to start out.
Anyway, wordpress is quite easy to use now even for newbies.
Khaled
· 6 months ago
Fortunately its pretty simple to import a blogger blog into Wordpress, im pretty sure that you can also change the permalink structure to match the old blog posts or use something link Dean's Permalinks Migration which works well for swapping over to more friendly page links.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
As I explained in the post, if you didn't use a custom domain to start with, because it wasn't an available option or you preferred on some of your blogs not to host yourself using ftp, and then redirect to a WordPress.org blog, Google will insert their virus/malware notice
Also as mentioned, the importer is bugged, it handles stop words wrong.
anshul
· 6 months ago
@Andy I have been using blogspot for 9 months and have not problem in seo but if i switch to wordpress directly with chnage in domain name,redirects problems will come as you said,But if you want to really switch,i think to have run custom domain on blogspot for some months to get all links indexed and get blogspot link juice to new domain name,then switch to wordpress as switching with domain name from blogspot to wordpress is no problem as we can keep post pages link same through wordpress plugins.
Now the problem of indexing in label is right, as its the problem that has never been solved by blogspot,and need to be solved by them.
Secondly if you use custom domain from beggining i dont think there would be any problem in switching to wordpress.
Third to use big archive as you showed from Rick Blog,many bloggers use it and many not,i would like to know we should use it or not as according to me it leads to lot of indexing of pages with chances of duplicate content according to me.So i am using small archive only as you can check.
I am providing only blogspot resources so not thought of switching to domain for this blog but use domain name on other blogspot blogs like this Funny Pictures.Becauase i can switch to wordpress any time without problem as i think.
Please corrrect me where i am wrong,i would like to get cleared about it completely and would also like to share this problems on my blogspot reviewing your post and help other blogspot users too.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
Any links that use domainname.blogspot.com will be blocked if you decide at a later date to switch to WordPress by switching custom domain.
What is better? A few duplicate pages which could possibly rank as indented listings if relevant, or possibly 75% of your permalink pages not ranking at all because Google can't spider that deeply into your blog. This is a massively serious problem and all the fluff SEO post publishers about duplicate content can take a running jump into a volcano. Duplicate content can be something you want to avoid, but only if you have enough control of your site to ensure full indexing.
anshul
· 6 months ago
Ya i agree it may get blocked but thats why i said take custom domain on blogger and use for 2-3 months and try getting your all pages index with that domain so as to get back to seo,then switching might not be problem.Correct me Please.
And one question, Should we use these long archive in blogger or not? Keping in mind the seo.
Wayne Davies
· 6 months ago
You've certainly given me food for thought. I figured I could avoid installing Word Press, and take the path of least resistance with Blogger.
Thank you for opening my eyes. I'm going to pay a visit to the wordpress site, and get it set up on one of my servers.
Why is the quick and easy way never ultimately the smart way? And why do I keep forgetting this?
Wayne Davies
· 6 months ago
Just following up my own comment from a few days back.
I found it really easy to add rel="nofollow", switch the 'sitemap on every page' to a drop down form (thus solving the problem), and turning off links in headlines...though I decided to turn these back on again.
Blogger clearly isn't as flexible as WordPress, but I don't think all the points in the article are valid.
Today a client of mine decided they wanted a news page on their site. I pointed them at Blogger, and 10 minutes later they had a news page linked from their site. That's pretty useful in my opinion.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
The sitemap on every page, though a little code heavy, is probably a good thing depending on what other ways you allow bots to index your content. It is then a ball linking structure, but at least it ensures content isn't too far from the home page or places collecting juice.
It is quick setting up Blogger, especially if it is somehow mapped to a domain that you control, for future ability to move should a change in platform be deemed necessary.
cabmgmnt
· 6 months ago
I am somewhat new to this but am learning quickly. I understand the point you are making as I have just started my own site and have installed wordpress there. I am currently using blogger and had intended on transferring content. Fortunately, my links don't run deep and I don't think I would experience the issues that you are describing. My question, however, is this: after reading a lot about optimizing content for SEO, I have repeatedly read not to link your pages too deeply no matter what format that you use. An actual example was given by a very successful adsense marketer who never goes more than 2 pages deep. This is intended for optimal search engine rankings. How do you feel about this technique? And should I avoid transferring any content from blogger to my new site?
Mark
· 6 months ago
THis is what i need to know. as there is a problem of blogspot blogs getting rank on SE. thanks for this great information.
regards; nsfive seo
Steve, afflilate
· 6 months ago
I only ever tried blogger once and did not like it one bit, So it’s not a problem for me. But still at least blogger still have a blog with google, just read on this blog that yahoo is pulling the plug on their 360 service. http://performancing.com/blogging/yahoo-360-clo...
Mehdi Hassan
· 6 months ago
Google Blogspot might not be SEO friendly but this is best if you want to earn money in Internet without spending anything. The space and bandwidth is amazing compared to many hosting companies. So if you have a blog that has good traffic and you do not want to buy a dedicated hosting server then blogspot is the best.
Gorj Design
· 6 months ago
Well.. I am glad I start using Wordprees when i start blogging, because is a very good SEO and it can be easily learned even by newbies. Until now I dont seem to have problem and it seems is Google friendly .
I still think bloogger is very much behind other blogging platforms in SEO Optimization & related stuff.
Domain Superstar
· 6 months ago
I used to use a couple different blogspot blogs years ago but now I would never in a million years consider using a blogspot blog again when you compare blogspot to Wordpress and specifically the extremely active WP community that offers plugins, themes, etc.
jack
· 6 months ago
Very interesting. I am a blogger users and it doesn't came across to my mind coz I am not even a techguy. Now I learn something from you, it's definitely great to discover these things. Blogspot users are hurt knowing this coz until now google don't take action to improve this.
Lars Stork
· 6 months ago
As a blogger myself, I really need the feature "categories" to be added on blogger. However, I am seeing no updates from blogger addressing it. For the mean time, I put labels on every post though not really sure what it does aside from tagging posts. The article above clears my questions about it.
travel in tibet
· 6 months ago
This is a very unique post. I am really glad to learn this information about Blogger SEO and i really appreciate your effort in posting this pictures. I love their look. This is really cool.
Ukraine
· 6 months ago
Honestly I though Blogger is the best solution for me as it is owned by Google. I heve revently created a blog with Blogger. It exists for a week and I am on second page for "ukrainian people" keyword. May be this is because competition is not so strong. I also have chosen Blogger because of AdSense. But what you say is really disappointing. I still hope that I will have good ranking due to relatively small competition.
Brian Hancock
· 6 months ago
Very interesting post. I actually setup a blogspot blog in an attempt to take control of SERPs for my name and gain another listing. Surprisingly it took much longer to get indexed than my 'normal' blog I setup earlier... I assumed any property owned by Google would perform like YouTube - content indexed with practically zero delay.
Anyway, I didn't plan on aggressively promoting my blogspot blog as a destination but it's certainly nice to know it's shortcomings. Thanks!
atul chatterjee
· 6 months ago
The upshot of this seems to be use your own web hosting. I started something in blogspot but someone strongly dissuaded me from going ahead with it. Some of them are emerging now.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
Not necessarily, but you 100% have to use your own domain from the start
jose
· 6 months ago
Great information and thanks for sharing this. And I think wordpress is better than blogspot in SEO
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
I am not claiming that WP is better for SEO out of the box and plenty of people running WordPress even with lots of SEO plugins (in many cases because of) have much worse SEO than Blogspot.
If you don't know what you are doing, you can mess things up.
Pojok Santai
· 6 months ago
Hmm.... I tought about the topic of your post too. And by reading your post I am sure now that blogspot doesn't SEO friendly.... But anyway I still choose it as the best free blog service...
Dominic Joelson
· 6 months ago
This is such an interesting topic. I've been using blogger for years and I always have problems with it. I've been trying to learn how to have a good blog for years and this is such a good information.
Although, I have already created a website, I really do appreciate this information. This is something not found elsewhere. Thanks
How To Get Taller is my site. I still need information like that above-mentioned. Thanks a gain.
Cornelia Cunningham
· 6 months ago
Even if blogger and blogspot are seo friendly, if the person using the blog does not have any idea what an seo is then it would be useless. Take for example the use of tags. A newbie blogger who does not have any idea what tags are would neglect the use of keywords in the tags.
paul
· 6 months ago
this is very interesting post! i m so glad i took the time out to read. time consuming process is defently worth waiting for to get all redirects sorted!
Susan Martin
· 6 months ago
Sorry this is a little off topic, but what do you think about utilizing wordpress for a website? I've heard some talk about this recently...
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
I would research topics such as WordPress as a CMS, though there is no reason why your current platform, Hubspot, can't be used as a website either.
Adam Alfia
· 6 months ago
Definitely food for thought. When I started my own blog, we went with Wordpress on our own host. I'm glad I didn't pursue it with Blogger -- perhaps Google's subconscious intention is to keep Blogger for non-corporate usage ...
Although if that were the case, they should probably make that point clear.
New York Forum
· 6 months ago
I honestly never thought that blogging platforms were SEO friendly, such as blogger or blogsome. However, I guess this is a good thing since it actually forced me to learn more about how to optimize these platforms myself.
Self Storage USA
· 6 months ago
Thought I'd throw something else out there to chew on - Joomla. I use the open-source platform, for everything from restaurant websites to online shopping to pure blog websites. And it's extremely SEO friendly. Complete control over everything SEO.
Jeremy G.
· 6 months ago
Though I knew Blogger had issues, I didn't realize there were this many. Good list and run down. I just never used it after knowing of just a few, opting to use Wordpress, and then customizing it to make it search engine friendly. Any one who is thinking of using Blogger should read this post first!
Hellas
· 6 months ago
Other problem that beginners often make on blogger, is that they add bunch of stuff to their sidebars so their blog codebase become very huge. Bunch of javascript and unecesary things.
Page need to be kept in small size for better performance.
Elliot Silver
· 6 months ago
You'd think it would be ideal considering its owned and managed by Google. IMO, when it boils down to it, having the keyword domain name is half the battle.
Sourav
· 6 months ago
yes I agree with your post but I have seen that blogger blogs appear in search results whereas WP blogs don't.But recently Matt Cutts said that WP blogs looks after 80% of seo needs.
Owais
· 6 months ago
I don't think blogger is SEO friendly.. every one praises WORDPRESS now!
It is a good information for me. I want to be a blogger. In fact I have prepared my blogs in two different blogging software. I hope I can decide to choose which one I will maintain to be my future blog.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
I really wish there was some way with Disqus to delete your link, as the content you write about SEO is very misleading. You don't even seem to understand the difference between PageRank (one of Google's patented ranking algorithms, based on links) and SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Position) I didn't spend long enough on your site to see if this is something you do professionally - if it is, think about another job or at least learn a little more before writing.
Nishadha Silva
· 6 months ago
You are saying that drop down menu doesn't pass any link juice and the archive structure shown in the image passes link juice right ? Any other tips to optimize blogspot blogs for search engines ?
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
Certainly seems that way, though Google in theory can crawl forms, it depends on implementation.
SEOJebus
· 6 months ago
It's kinda hard to believe Google would run a blog system that is so SEO unfriendly, but I do know first hand maintaining a Blogspot blog in the rankings is much harder to do than say, a wordpress blog.
Falcon
· 6 months ago
Hi Andy, first time reading your site, like it so far. Blogger definitely isn't SEO friendly, but I see it more as an entry level platform to get into blogging and website design / management.
I think Google hasn't really made it SEO friendly because I don't think the user base demands it as much, they typically are not as experienced or web savvy as users who use Drupal or WordPress for example, I don't mean that in a bad way, just a different segment of users.
While Blogger isn't very SEO friendly, I think even other mainstream systems such as WordPress and Drupal still have a long way to go in terms of SEO as well.
While definitely offering more in terms of SEO than Blogger, they both have some serious gaps out of the box. These gaps are currently plugged using extensions/plugins, or manual coding.
I would like to see SEO as a higher priority on these systems, it would almost make sense to have someone very experienced and representative of the search engine market as a key product manager.
To recap, Blogger is a good starting point for people with very basic knowledge about running a website. Drupal is the most functional, but WordPress is easier to use I find and does just as much in most cases.
Regardless, if SEO is important to you don't use Blogger, and research how to enhance the SEO capabilities of Drupal and WordPress on the web.
Regards OZ
Aditya SEO
· 6 months ago
But then how some of the blogspot blogs are really successful?
some of them get huge traffic with high PR.
AndyBeard
· 6 months ago
Lots of sites get "huge traffic" and their SEO sucks
It is not a matter of how many green pixels, but how you use real PageRank that matters.
Rohit
· 5 months ago
wow amazing post what would you suggest for blogging wordpress or blogger? on any other bloggig platform?
Rohit
· 5 months ago
where is my comment?
AndyBeard
· 5 months ago
It was deleted (though I have restored it)
As to the question, asking questions which don't provide enough specific answers to individual circumstances isn't very useful,
90%+ of comments left by humans get deleted on this blog as it attracts both the best and worst comments on the internet (at least about the topics I talk about)
jitterbug978
· 5 months ago
Well that definately makes me think twice about being registered to blogger blogspot. Youd think with google owning it theyd do all they could to optimize their blogging platform to their search engine. It would attract alot more attention to blogger vs wordpress.
Mitchell
· 5 months ago
I wish I knew this before I signed up with Blogger. Now I have over 200 posts on my blogger blog...and I just imported everything to Wordpress.
I'm not sure if it will make a difference in SEO, but I guess I'll find out soon.
Good info...although, a lot of the tech stuff I don't get. Thanks,
AndyBeard
· 5 months ago
I hope you didn't go to WordPress.com without using your own domain name, registered through a 3rd party service such as Namecheap.
Mitchell
· 5 months ago
All I did was put in the name of I wanted, which would then be attached to wordpress.com. And then I clicked on import in the tools provided by Wordpress. I didn't register it with Namecheap or a third party.
There must be an SEO reason why you are suggesting this. So, should I start over? But, isn't all the blogs in Wordpress end with wordpress.com which means that registering the name wouldn't make a difference.
Thanks for your advice. I'm not getting any Google love on my blogger blog--very frustrating.
AndyBeard
· 5 months ago
If Wordpress.com in their wisdom decide they don't like your blog, they will shut it down, and you won't have any control over redirects to another service.
Wordpress.com are anti-commercial - they don't like affiliate links etc.
Using a domain you registered elsewhere and paying a small fee to WP.com to allow you to use it means that in the event you wish to move, you can take your content elsewhere, along with the link to it.
Long-term you might be better off on your own hosting
It seems you are in the poker niche (risky competitive) and an affiliate (a massive wp.com no no)
I would give your blog on Wordpress.com a 50% chance per month of just disappearing, without any notification.
Those aren't good odds.
Mitchell
· 5 months ago
Andy:
Thanks for your help! I will just shut it down on wordpress.
I'll read up on other options...maybe wordpress direct will be better.
Thanks so much for your advice.
Mitchell
KevinHeisler
· 5 months ago
Andy - great post. A friend of mine was advised by a well-meaning "internet guru" in the South of France to switch his blogging platform to Blogspot. He was told "optimizers always advise to go with blogger for blogs because, yes, it's free and easy to use, but more importantly it gets immediately posted onto google because google owns blogger."
The guru went on to explain the key benefit of Blogger: it allows more "descriptors" -- old-school for "index terms." What are these mysterious descriptors?
Keywords.
Thanks for helping keep the world safe from self-styled internet gurus.
AndyBeard
· 5 months ago
Hi Kevin
There is actually a counter to this that I haven't yet written about, and pure speculation
The official line based on what Google has said is that even nofollow used on the tag links would now "evaporate" PageRank.
timL
· 5 months ago
It amazes me that blogger isn't SEO friendly... especially since it's designed by Google. I would think that it would give bloggers a little bit more control over the content they product and how it appears online. Blogger should definitely address these issues before individuals switch to new blogs that allow them additional freedom and more easily indexed and optimized websites in terms of SEO/SEM.
Great post.
Tim
Jake's SEO Blogger
· 5 months ago
I am relatively new to blogging so I beagn teaching myself with blogger. Lately I have had quite the headache trying to tweak the blogger templates to be more SEO friendly. There are sites everywhere telling you to copy and paste some code into the edit html screen and your blog will be optimized like that. Most of them don't work and your template won't allow you to save, so you have to figure the stuff out yourself . Such a pain...I guess if I knew than what I know now, I would have gone the wordpress route.
alex27
· 4 months ago
The upshot of this seems to be use your own web hosting. I started something in blogspot but someone strongly dissuaded me from going ahead with it. Some of them are emerging now.
Mitchell1969
· 4 months ago
I was able to get my Blogspot Blog to number 1 in the Google search results for keywords I wanted!!! Well, only for two weeks.....after that my site disappeared off the face of the Google map. It was fun while it lasted....who knows, maybe it will come back.
Dan Brown
· 4 months ago
Well well, blogspot is good and bad depending on how we want to exploit it. Wordpress sucks. Anyone can complain about your blog and they take it off without any notice so better stay away from wordpress.
Coming back to blogpsot it has got good sides as well - free - very tolerant - quick indexing - quick to setup and you get live in no time
I feel you you exploit it carefully then it might be helpful for you in SEO
joomlaexpert
· 4 months ago
I don't think that they are SEO friendly, especially in the eyes of Google.
FanZan
· 3 months ago
for me its not friendly , i use wordpress and it works like magic also i wanna to ask you for a personal advice i have this domain http://blogspot.im how could i use it to make money
AndyBeard
· 3 months ago
I wouldn't invest any time in it because Blogspot I would guess is a Google trademark
All Comments
I use Blogger so this is all very interesting for me. I'm confused about the solution to label pages problem. Could you please explain the following solution:
"Have excerpts on the label pages" - what exactly does this mean and how would one achieve it? Don't label pages already list all the blog posts, and what's the point of adding excerpts if they won't be indexed?
"Possibly noindex the label pages with either meta noindex or robots.txt noindex" - again, isn't robots.txt already disallowing indexing of /search on Blogger blogs, and do you mean that there is a way to modify robots.txt on a Blogger blog?
"Add nofollow to all external links on the label pages, both in the content and sidebar" - at first I thought you meant add nofollow TO labels in content and sidebar, but then I re-read it and got even more confused... Since label pages contain blog posts in them, how would I go nofollowing external links in label pages but NOT in normal post pages if those links are inside blog posts?
The noindex is optional, though would be better to have them indexed and possibly pulling in content globally as well.
The only thing Blogger users can do about labels themselves is stop using them, and work out some other way to create topical sitemaps manually.
Would it help if I added rel="nofollow" to every label link on my blog? Should be pretty easy to do, I just wonder if there's any point.
Or adding meta noindex via using the "if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'" hack in the head (I've read some people got this working, but it seems to give me an error). If Blogger would have a label pagetype then it would be no problem adding noindex yourself.
But is noindex necessary when robots.txt is already blocking label pages?
If someone has been publishing some kind of hack, it is totally worthless.
If there is a way to nofollow the label links then that works, though you still need a viable solution to get deep pages indexed with the date based archives (e.g. Rick's blog), custom made category pages, or somehow using a 3rd party site in some kind of ping-pong arrangement, grabbing the RSS feeds, and effectively creating your own tag space.
I was also wondering if I'd benefit from adding "noindex, follow" to all archive pages. You see, Google indexes archive pages of Blogger which is duplicate content, plus they sometimes even rank in SERPs instead of my actual item pages. But I still want Google to follow links inside archives so it can reach my older posts to index them. Is "noindex, follow" a valid combination?
Appreciate the input. Stay tuned.
When I started with Blogger I foolishly thought that because it is owned by Google this would be an advantage. How wrong! The only SEO traffic I get is stuff for really obscure combinations of words. The one thing that made me happy was how quickly Google knew about my new content, but since it is totally devalued for SEO that is no use at all!
I reckon that if you're on Blogger you should just get out as soon as you can figure out how to, unless you are only blogging for your family and a few friends.
If you've got any tips related to importing to Wordpress I'd love to hear them. You can tweet me at @alisonkerr.
Should I just skip blogger altogether if I am doing this?
Thanks,
Alex
Almost everything can be fixed manually but it still is a pain in the A$$ and light years behind wordpress.
However, I still do appreciate blogspot blogs as it is easier for newbies to start out.
Anyway, wordpress is quite easy to use now even for newbies.
Also as mentioned, the importer is bugged, it handles stop words wrong.
I have been using blogspot for 9 months and have not problem in seo but if i switch to wordpress directly with chnage in domain name,redirects problems will come as you said,But if you want to really switch,i think to have run custom domain on blogspot for some months to get all links indexed and get blogspot link juice to new domain name,then switch to wordpress as switching with domain name from blogspot to wordpress is no problem as we can keep post pages link same through wordpress plugins.
Now the problem of indexing in label is right, as its the problem that has never been solved by blogspot,and need to be solved by them.
Secondly if you use custom domain from beggining i dont think there would be any problem in switching to wordpress.
Third to use big archive as you showed from Rick Blog,many bloggers use it and many not,i would like to know we should use it or not as according to me it leads to lot of indexing of pages with chances of duplicate content according to me.So i am using small archive only as you can check.
I am providing only blogspot resources so not thought of switching to domain for this blog but use domain name on other blogspot blogs like this Funny Pictures.Becauase i can switch to wordpress any time without problem as i think.
Please corrrect me where i am wrong,i would like to get cleared about it completely and would also like to share this problems on my blogspot reviewing your post and help other blogspot users too.
What is better? A few duplicate pages which could possibly rank as indented listings if relevant, or possibly 75% of your permalink pages not ranking at all because Google can't spider that deeply into your blog. This is a massively serious problem and all the fluff SEO post publishers about duplicate content can take a running jump into a volcano.
Duplicate content can be something you want to avoid, but only if you have enough control of your site to ensure full indexing.
And one question, Should we use these long archive in blogger or not?
Keping in mind the seo.
Thank you for opening my eyes. I'm going to pay a visit to the wordpress site, and get it set up on one of my servers.
Why is the quick and easy way never ultimately the smart way? And why do I keep forgetting this?
I found it really easy to add rel="nofollow", switch the 'sitemap on every page' to a drop down form (thus solving the problem), and turning off links in headlines...though I decided to turn these back on again.
Blogger clearly isn't as flexible as WordPress, but I don't think all the points in the article are valid.
Today a client of mine decided they wanted a news page on their site. I pointed them at Blogger, and 10 minutes later they had a news page linked from their site. That's pretty useful in my opinion.
It is quick setting up Blogger, especially if it is somehow mapped to a domain that you control, for future ability to move should a change in platform be deemed necessary.
I am currently using blogger and had intended on transferring content. Fortunately, my links don't run deep and I don't think I would experience the issues that you are describing. My question, however, is this: after reading a lot about optimizing content for SEO, I have repeatedly read not to link your pages too deeply no matter what format that you use. An actual example was given by a very successful adsense marketer who never goes more than 2 pages deep. This is intended for optimal search engine rankings. How do you feel about this technique? And should I avoid transferring any content from blogger to my new site?
regards;
nsfive seo
But still at least blogger still have a blog with google, just read on this blog that yahoo is pulling the plug on their 360 service.
http://performancing.com/blogging/yahoo-360-clo...
I think i would have made it right in the post it would be great if you can go through it in flash.
Anyway, I didn't plan on aggressively promoting my blogspot blog as a destination but it's certainly nice to know it's shortcomings. Thanks!
And I think wordpress is better than blogspot in SEO
If you don't know what you are doing, you can mess things up.
I tought about the topic of your post too. And by reading your post I am sure now that blogspot doesn't SEO friendly.... But anyway I still choose it as the best free blog service...
Although, I have already created a website, I really do appreciate this information. This is something not found elsewhere. Thanks
How To Get Taller is my site. I still need information like that above-mentioned. Thanks a gain.
Although if that were the case, they should probably make that point clear.
Page need to be kept in small size for better performance.
every one praises WORDPRESS now!
Earn more money NOW!
I didn't spend long enough on your site to see if this is something you do professionally - if it is, think about another job or at least learn a little more before writing.
I think Google hasn't really made it SEO friendly because I don't think the user base demands it as much, they typically are not as experienced or web savvy as users who use Drupal or WordPress for example, I don't mean that in a bad way, just a different segment of users.
While Blogger isn't very SEO friendly, I think even other mainstream systems such as WordPress and Drupal still have a long way to go in terms of SEO as well.
While definitely offering more in terms of SEO than Blogger, they both have some serious gaps out of the box. These gaps are currently plugged using extensions/plugins, or manual coding.
I would like to see SEO as a higher priority on these systems, it would almost make sense to have someone very experienced and representative of the search engine market as a key product manager.
To recap, Blogger is a good starting point for people with very basic knowledge about running a website. Drupal is the most functional, but WordPress is easier to use I find and does just as much in most cases.
Regardless, if SEO is important to you don't use Blogger, and research how to enhance the SEO capabilities of Drupal and WordPress on the web.
Regards
OZ
some of them get huge traffic with high PR.
It is not a matter of how many green pixels, but how you use real PageRank that matters.
As to the question, asking questions which don't provide enough specific answers to individual circumstances isn't very useful,
90%+ of comments left by humans get deleted on this blog as it attracts both the best and worst comments on the internet (at least about the topics I talk about)
I'm not sure if it will make a difference in SEO, but I guess I'll find out soon.
Good info...although, a lot of the tech stuff I don't get. Thanks,
There must be an SEO reason why you are suggesting this. So, should I start over? But, isn't all the blogs in Wordpress end with wordpress.com which means that registering the name wouldn't make a difference.
Right now my wordpress site is www.winapokertournament.wordpress.com.
Thanks for your advice. I'm not getting any Google love on my blogger blog--very frustrating.
Wordpress.com are anti-commercial - they don't like affiliate links etc.
Using a domain you registered elsewhere and paying a small fee to WP.com to allow you to use it means that in the event you wish to move, you can take your content elsewhere, along with the link to it.
Long-term you might be better off on your own hosting
It seems you are in the poker niche (risky competitive) and an affiliate (a massive wp.com no no)
I would give your blog on Wordpress.com a 50% chance per month of just disappearing, without any notification.
Those aren't good odds.
Thanks for your help! I will just shut it down on wordpress.
I'll read up on other options...maybe wordpress direct will be better.
Thanks so much for your advice.
Mitchell
The guru went on to explain the key benefit of Blogger: it allows more "descriptors" -- old-school for "index terms." What are these mysterious descriptors?
Keywords.
Thanks for helping keep the world safe from self-styled internet gurus.
There is actually a counter to this that I haven't yet written about, and pure speculation
The official line based on what Google has said is that even nofollow used on the tag links would now "evaporate" PageRank.
Great post.
Tim
Wordpress sucks. Anyone can complain about your blog and they take it off without any notice so better stay away from wordpress.
Coming back to blogpsot it has got good sides as well
- free
- very tolerant
- quick indexing
- quick to setup and you get live in no time
I feel you you exploit it carefully then it might be helpful for you in SEO
also i wanna to ask you for a personal advice
i have this domain http://blogspot.im how could i use it to make money