Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

66 comments

1. Joe Hernandez (1 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:44 pm 

   Exactly.

   You can’t just install a Wordpress blog and expect that Google will rush to you. However if you use a lot of the useful plugins that are out there, and you have good content, than you can expect good traffic to follow.
   The biigest advantage that Wordpress offers is the ability to automatically ping a number of sites, and tell them, hey!, I got something new for you.
   Google loves something fresh.

2. Philip (5 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:47 pm 

   Thanks, Josh! I love making sites in WP just for the plugins, very useful and made my decision to move away from static sites much easier.

   It does make sense that Google prefers relevancy over a platform, but is the ability to “ping” any help at all?

3. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:48 pm 

   I am going to totally disagree with you on this entry. I have had a static site for over 11 years. It was a bummer to keep up at first but then I got software that allows me to do all kinds of cool things to it. I then decided in April/May of this year to switch it to Wordpress because everyone says it’s better. My revenue went down by almost 50%. It was a nightmare. I had built this beautiful wordpress site, purchased software to help me get the images and layouts right and then my cash tanked.

   My visitors were down, my cash was down. I pulled the wordpress blog and went back to good ole html. It took a month to settle itself but revenue is back up and I was number 1 for my BIG keyword and strong. Today I noticed I went to number 2 for that word so I need to take action to move it back up BUT I will never fall into the Wordpress rocks groupie eyes glazed over pothole again.

   Html for ME is better and I will only use html from now on.

   Hopes its okay to share my thoughts but it was my experience and it failed on my horribly.

   Rhonda Morin

4. Roland Campos (1 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:49 pm 

   Josh, thanks for this helpful article. You’re one of the few internet marketers I listen to!

5. Mark Mason (68 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:50 pm 

   I completely agree — there’s ping automation too — another advantage to wordpress.

   Of course the downsides are security and maintainability. If you have 10 wordpress blogs with ten plugins each — you suddenly have 100 software installs to keep up to date. That is why I love platforms like Firepow that do all that for you.

   Great post — hope you get the car.

6. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:50 pm 

   Oh, as a follow up…. I love the plugins that WP has and I wish, oh how I wish someone could create the same types of easy to use tools for html code. I did love Wordpress for that and that alone.

   Rhonda Morin

7. Simon (10 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:52 pm 

   Google gives priority to websites which are frequently updated. Blogs are usually updated (providing the owner updates frequently) regularly and provide original and unique content. This is what the search engines love!

8. 3rd Party blog (2 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:52 pm 

   Hey Josh,

   It would be redundant to say that you are right of course, however I have noticed that sometimes when I build out a WP site before having time to enter content, that when I come back to it in a few days that the Alexa rank has already dropped down to 2 or 3 million instead of the starting out over 10 million.

   So evidently just raw WordPress sites must get some traffic. I know that does not have anything to do with Google exactly but find it interesting.

   Good post thanks for the info.
   Rich

9. Paul Darby (1 comments.)
   27th October, 2009 at 3:53 pm 

   The core truth in your post is that Google exist to make money. This is what most people forget
   To make money they need to provide the best results for every search.
   It’s content and authority that count not blog or static site.

   Having said that, Wordpress makes creating a static site a piece of cake as well.

   Paul

10. Kris (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 3:54 pm 

    Josh, good point. I had trouble installing wordpress on one of my sites so I used nucleus (which is not quite as good). I’ve considered switching, but I’m starting to get ranked for my blog posts, so I’ll stick with it.

11. Bob Blick (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 3:56 pm 

    Josh – That is probably the most sensible answer to this question I have heard yet.

12. Anthony
    27th October, 2009 at 4:03 pm 

    Hi Josh,
    Not sure I understand your comment re RSS on static sites. I have an RSS button on a static site…

13. Mike Stokes (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 4:20 pm 

    This is a very good explanation. It makes perfect sense. Thank you for clearing it up. I was one of those people that said Google prefers WordPress because that is what I had been told..

    Mike Stokes
    Baton Rouge, LA

14. TimS (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 4:31 pm 

    The main advantage of wordpress over more conventional static sites is the ability for people with no technical knowledge to setup, update and maintain easily. Completely agree that if the content is relevant, Google will point you there… whatever the platform.

15. Susan-NicheBlogs (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 4:37 pm 

    Hi Josh

    This is a great post and comfirms what would seem obvious but…

    As stated blogs rank better, index quicker, are more flexible expecially in content addition and expandablility (plugins), easier to promote yourself or even visitors who may syndicate your posts etc

    Those points giving more advantage to blogs make blogs better SEO wise.

    That being the case, people may just assume that its the platform responsible for the rankings rather than what actually is going on in the background to get the rankings. Its a blind non tested belief going around the net or being taught and taken up on faith alone.

    Thanks for a very informative article

    Susan

16. Scott (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 4:38 pm 

    Hey Josh….I appreciate your post but think your logic is a bit faulty.

    The water is hot and I burn my hand. However, you say not all water burns your hand. Exactly, only hot water!

    Thus you say, Google doesn’t prefer wordpress sites but because wordpress has plugins, rss, pings, blah blah blah…it gets indexed first and quicker! If this is true…isn’t WP better?

    So is it a matter of symantics or are you just stating the obvious? The point is, you burn your hand because the water is hot…..or wordpress blogs get indexed quicker and can be construed as being favored by Google simply because they have all these gadgets that attract Google and Google likes. Bottom line, Wordpress blogs are better than static sites!

    I think I understand what you’re trying to say and I agree with you. If you take a static site and make it do all the things that a wordpress site does, Google will notice it faster and it will get indexed and ranked quicker.

    Personally, I prefer using Dreamweaver to build sites and have been using it for 6 or 7 years. Recently (2+ years ago) I’ve been introduced to Xsitepro. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with Xsitepro, however, I was creating graphics and minisites for a plr membership and they required Xsitepro for the minisite platform. After using it for a year, I began to get attached to it simply because you could make a site get spidered, indexed and in the SERPS within 24 hours, often times sooner.

    Like Wordpress, Xsitepro automatically does things to the site structure and pages to create an seo optimized website and webpage. However, you use other features such as create an xml feed (rss feed) sitemaps (standard and xml). I’ve found that doing just these 2 additional things and then submitting the feed to rss directories will get a webpage or site spidered and indexed in Goolge in less than 24 hours.

    Yep, an Xsitepro site in the serps in under 24 hours. Often times the same time or less than a wordpress site, if I don’t use my Auto Social Poster plugin, the wordpress site does not get indexed in less than 24 hours.

    So….in many words and in many ways I completely agree with you. Wordpress sites don’t experience the quick ratings simply because they are Wordpress sites, but because of all the processes involved when creating wordpress sites. Apply those same processes to any static site and you should experience the same results as any wordpress site!

    Thanks again,

    Scott

17. Chaz (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 4:39 pm 

    Hi Josh,

    I have to agree with you on another well written post. I remember as a complete newbie I heard that a WP blog would get me ranked quickly. Well after making post after post I found I was nowhere to be found in the SERP’s. I guess I had to learn the hard way that the philosophy of build it and they will come just doesn’t work. Not even with a WP platform.

    I had to learn the most important thing you can do with any site is to market it. It wasn’t until I implemented all of the things that you have to do to get a normal html site ranked, ( proper keyword research, building backlinks, article marketing etc.) before I started to see results.

    I do agree that WP does have it’s advantages with all the plug-ins that are available but unfortunately just simply saying that it is a better tool to use for higher rankings can be very misleading, especially to folks out there just getting started online.

    Chaz

18. stewkelly
    27th October, 2009 at 4:47 pm 

    Hey Josh,

    Thank you for an interesting post. I see it has stimulated some dialogue here.

    I think the points about WordPress’ ease of use and interactivity give it some edge, but I think a strategically designed static site can be advantageous if you don’t have WP plugins to archive pages.

    Being an authority is key no matter what platform you use.
    Stew

19. Sami
    27th October, 2009 at 5:05 pm 

    Hi Josh

    I totally agree with your reasoning about Google’s treament of Wordpress vs static sites. Wordpress is “effective” because of the tools it has bult-in and a plugins.

    BUT I wonder if you are sticking with a the strict definition of static sites as in pure HTML (& some javascript functionality) or are you including other platforms that create pages as opposed to posts!?

    If you consider the latter as static then that includes CMS’s such as Joomla & Drupal … these have a large number of modules an dplugins and of course they can ping etc. And they are easy to use and update without any techy/html knowledge.

    As for the strticly static sites, even there you can have RSS. In fact there are tools/sites that create RSS feeds for your site (from your pages).

    One of the comments above suffered in the switch over to wordpress … that is probably due to various issues such as site structure & URLs being different and therefore original pages may not be found in exactly the same way using the same URLs.

    That would explain the immediate visitor drop. There is no earthly reason why the exact same content on a different infrastructure would get penalized.

    I have many dropped domains that I have bought. While they awaited deletion obviously no links to these sites worked. But even after months when I pointed them to advertising the traffic continued – some have been in that form for about 2 years with no extra content. The traffic and the income still continues.

    Thanks for for the interesting post.
    Sami

20. Currency Trader
    27th October, 2009 at 5:16 pm 

    For making small niche sites static html is quicker and better

    For bigger sites targeting lots of search phrases a SEO’d wordpress blog with lots of plugins is better – but there’s always plugins to be updated – and of course you have to be constantly creating new content

    Many wordpress plugins don’t work properly – for various reasons such as hosting, conflicts with other plugins, etc.

    I build both types of sites – I even have a static site with built in wordpress blog!

21. ken (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 5:19 pm 

    Thanks Josh.

    One question, is a WP Post and Page viewed the same way by search engines and do the search engines get pinged every time I update a Page?

    I use both on my site but it seems Posts get more visitors that the static Pages. I don’t have a lot traffic yet so it is hard to tell what is going on.

    Thanks in advance for any help (from anyone).
    Ken

22. Franck Silvestre (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 5:22 pm 

    Hey Josh,

    You are right. I’ve said this for age. I even talk about it in my seo ebook.

    In fact, I always use blogs to help me rank my sites (it’s not the sole purpose of my blogs though).

    Blogs are also great to add content at light speed and to interact with your visitors and subscribers.

    It’s more difficult to do with a static site.

    Franck

23. SolarPowerSystems
    27th October, 2009 at 5:36 pm 

    Although I don’t have a web developing background at all, I very much agree with Scott. And as someone mentions, regular sites also have RSS already.

    I have used Site Build It, Word Press and finally XSitePro for ten months and my favorite is XSite Pro, at least for now. Sites get indexed very fast, faster than with WP, this is my personal experience.

    I think that it’s more a question of different platforms for different needs. I would even say that there are different platforms for different personalities. I have just started to convert a WP blog back to an XsitePro site. What I do like is to add a WP blog to a site, and keep it very simple.

    All the plugins for WP are cool, the things they can do are amazing, but they can be very time consuming, and they made me very tired. I don’t know why most people are so convinced that WP is technically very easy. Installing it may be very simple, but then, if you want a nice site/blog it can be difficult to make it work and appear just the way you want.

    Anyway, I find that here the discussion WP versus HTML site is civilized. I have seen the two opposing-sides get very excited and even aggressive in other blogs. Go figure! At the end of the day, it’s just a matter of personal preference and specific needs.

24. Carlos (12 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 5:39 pm 

    Another thing that many internet marketers don’t realize is that Google does not see the web site! In other words Google does not have eyes like we do.

    It’s web crawlers do not see with eyes.

    They see only the source code.

    They cannot see an image. They don’t know what you look like in the nice fancy photo on your web site. They don’t see the fancy Flash presentation or that beautiful Javascript rollover.

    They don’t appreciate or rank or otherwise evaluate any of that fancy stuff. At least not in the sense that you and I see things.

    All they look at mainly is the source code. They see your site the way you see it when you look at the source code view.

    Just another common misconception regarding what Google sees just like the idea that Google loves Wordpress blogs just because they are…well…WordPress.

    Carlos

25. Paul (10 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 6:02 pm 

    Very good post Josh. I’ve always wondered why my wp posts get indexed sometimes in a matter of minutes. But when I make a static webpage it takes much longer. Now I know why!

26. wlben (2 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 6:14 pm 

    I appreciated your comments and agree with you. I also liked to read the following comments. It’s interesting that we don’t see a lot of info when we have a mind that is already set.
    “a man convinced against his will, is of the same mind still” (by a wise man)
    Thanks
    w.

27. David @ Computer sales and support (8 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 6:20 pm 

    What would you reply to Ken Evoy of SBI who says blogs don’t work because they are like a random stack of articles as opposed to an organized static site where people can spend a lot of time perusing organized content?

    My experience has been that the blog sites generate traffic faster but I would be interested in your insights.

28. Edwin (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 7:30 pm 

    I am a big wordpress fan and when someone asks me why I think a wordpress blog ranks beter then a pure html site my response would be in the same line as yours

    But having build sites with notepad for years I tend to go back to that but include the rss feeds and pinging for my micro niche sites. Because I am a set and forget guy and all those extra functions I do not need nor do I like the fact that every month there is a new version because of security issues. So what I will do is use wordpress for some sites but my micro niche sites will be more and more non wordpress but with the things that make wordpress so loved by the search engines

29. Nando (7 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 7:38 pm 

    Hi Josh,

    Your post is dead on. As a personal test I set up a single html page for an affiliate promotion and a blog for the same product.

    The html page ranked on the first page for its keyword and the blog bounced around between page 5 and 10.

    The content and seo on and off page for the html site was also easier to control.

    Take care

30. Dave Whittle (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 8:08 pm 

    Hi Josh,

    Interesting post.

    You have certainly provoked a lot of discussion and that can’t be bad!

    I use Wordpress and static sites but lately I have read with interest about the use of Wordpress as mini affiliate review sites where they appear to get more attention from Google versus XSite Pro sites.

    Of course, they are also quicker and easier to set up.

    Food for thought indeed. Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Josh.

    Dave

31. Symptom Of Panic Attacks
    27th October, 2009 at 8:55 pm 

    This is great news since all I know how to do is set up a wordpress blog. I had been considering getting Xsite Pro; however I guess now I can save my money.

32. Joy (2 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 9:52 pm 

    I was just having this conversation with a friend this afternoon! You’ve obviously raised a lot more points than I thought of

    For me, having had to update an html site this afternoon, the ease of WP wins the day.

33. Marco (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 10:27 pm 

    I agree that they may not prefer WordPress over static sites, but with the ease of use of plugins (my favorite is XML Sitemaps), I think that using Wordpress as a CMS is a no-brainer.

    If I were to start a new static website I would need a lot more time to do the same things I do with plugins.

34. Darlene (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 10:32 pm 

    Interesting post.

    Wordpress versus static sites is something I think about everytime I begin a new site.

    I agree with Carlos in that search engines only see the source code.

    I also agree that SE’s are looking for current and useful info, and that it doesn’t matter if you have a static site or WP site, as long as you update your work regularly, along with all the other things that Chaz and Josh have mentioned in regards to marketing your sites.

    The thing that I do prefer with WP is how easy it is to create interaction with your readers through comments. I did try to incorporate a Blog on one of my static sites and I installed an html widget that I thought would allow me to offer a comments section, but the widget didn’t work very well.

    Thanks for starting the conversation!

    Darlene

35. Mark (1 comments.)
    27th October, 2009 at 10:36 pm 

    Josh,

    A good post, as most people have said.

    There is one more factor that may be relevant to some people, and Host Gator makes it very visible.

    Every file you upload to your hosting account counts as one “inode”, and there is a finite limit available on most hosting plans.

    So, if all you want to do is create a small mini-site, using WordPress would be technically inefficient as it will use up a lot of your inodes compared to a small static website.

    Probably not a biggie, but it may be a factor for some.

36. Tony (1 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 12:22 am 

    Yes, Google want sites that people keep going back to that will make them money.
    Why would people want to keep going back to a static site? How many static sites have adsense on? If you ran Google, what site would you give preference to?

    I have got two Wordpress sites indexed in a few hours. I’m still waiting after almost three weeks to get a static site indexed doing exactly what I did for the WP sites. (i.e. No links or promotion)

    For fast indexing and Google love – No contest.

    Tony

37. 2stepup (1 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 12:24 am 

    I think the ease of putting a HTML site up with xsitepro with a Minnie site structure of site map, privacy page, contact page, etc add an rss feed, and you get a versatile unique site that Google ’see’s ‘ a quality site that you don’t have to worry about breaking the code and updating plugins.

    I still use Wordpress as a blog for the very simplicity of quick interaction and content placement.

38. Michelle Adams (20 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 12:53 am 

    Josh I started reading this post with trepidation. I sure didn’t want to hear that it was ‘better’ to build straight html sites as I find it cumbersome!

    WordPress is so easy and the huge array of plugins available just adds so much functionality, I truly love it.

    Thanks for sharing this, it’s good to know that at the end of the day the platform isn’t the important factor when it comes to Google rankings.

39. Mighty (2 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 2:48 am 

    Thanks for this post Josh. I use Wordpress a lot. And I consider it a great blogging platform. But what I like most about your post is the way you question what the “experts” say and how bloggers and internet marketers just blindly follow them even without clearly understanding the logic behind their assertions.

40. Carolyn (2 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 5:59 am 

    Thanks for this Josh. I’m still trying to get my head around this whole thing. It’s so hard with so many ‘gurus’ out there all trying to sell you stuff.
    I feel like I can rust you because you don’t bullshirt the ways most of them do.

41. Ed (1 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 6:59 am 

    I agree with everything you pointed out in this post. I would not be surprised that the blogging format eventually replaces static sites. Nowadays you can create dateless posts and pages on blog platforms that you could never tell that they were not static sites.

42. Gary (11 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 9:56 am 

    Josh, I think you make a good point if you are directing it at those who think just by using Wordpress will make them successful or that they MUST use Wordpress. But I’d like to think most people understand Wordpress is just a publishing tool. Like driving a Porsche, Wordpress might allow you to hit the ground running a little faster, but without quality content, Google couldn’t care less .

43. Hristo Itchov
    28th October, 2009 at 1:05 pm 

    Well said, Josh. I have certainly noticed no difference in how my static sites rank over my sites made with the Wordpress platform. In fact, one of my static sites ranked much quicker and better purely because of better and well presented content.

44. Udegbunam Chukwudi (19 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 2:27 pm 

    I have no intention whatsoever to ever go back to using HTML full time. I’ve also noticed that Wordpress gets indexed a lot faster than HTML sites and creating HTML sites can be a real pain.

    I do agree with you that Google doesn’t prefer wordpress over static sites. It all comes down to authority.

    For now I only use HTML to create my sales pages as it’s more convenient and saves me server space instead of using another wordpress installation.

45. Beth Partin (12 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 4:18 pm 

    This is a wonderfully clear article, especially the part about Wordpress pinging other sites. Now if I could just my sitemap plugin to work…

46. Maca (1 comments.)
    28th October, 2009 at 9:13 pm 

    I now recommend WP for just about everything including static sites, with the plugins available you can achieve almost anything. It makes it easier to explain seo aspects to newbies too.

47. Jay Gumbs (1 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 2:43 am 

    The next time I hear someone say that I’m gonna make them gimme a dollar so I can buy that car.

48. Jim (5 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 5:03 am 

    Rhonda,

    Did the names of the pages of your WP site exactly match the pages of your static site.

    If they did not that is what happened to your traffic. If the page names did change you could have tried using permament redirects from the old page names to the new ones.

    There is no reason that the WP site if set up correctly should not rank as well as the static site…

    Jim

49. Rhonda Holland (2 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 6:10 am 

    I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard that too – I’d buy a red Ferrari though. LOL

50. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 2:28 pm 

    There have been some questions about my traffic and money falling after switching to WP so I thought I would address them.

    There is an HTML plug in that you can use in WP so ALL your pages end in html instead of the trailing “/”. I used that and I took SEO Website Builder, which is what I use to build my html pages, and I cut and pasted titles, descriptions, keywords and page titles. Then they all ended with html.

    In the eyes of the search engines everything should have been the same but my numbers still fell and my revenue was still down.

    I needed to tweak a few things so I did 301 redirects for a few pages so the site didn’t work like a real wordpress where you have lists and lists and lists of articles but instead had main sections with all the articles listed instead of just a few. I had to redirect to those pages and it was just a feature of WP that made me do this. The pages they were redirecting to were named exactly the same as the html pages. The main category pages were also html pages.

    I don’t know what the problem was, I was excited about it because of the plugins, the ease of adding content, etc. But when my numbers fell and I couldn’t get them back up, I trashed it and went back to plan A.

    I use Dr. Andy Williams SEO Website Builder to build all my html sites. I also use server sides includes for all the menus on the side bars, my footer menus and for advertising. It uses templates with template holders for information. It makes it easy to change one thing and upload that one page. OR to make a change on the entire site and upload all the pages. He has built in what he calls libraries and I use that as text or links to be added to a group of pages. For instance, all the articles about decorating bedrooms has a library. If the articles is about bedrooms I use the library for bedroom articles and it automatically adds all the other “Related Articles” about bedrooms before I upload it to my server.

    I have been using this software for 5 or more years now and it has made my life so much easier. I tweak the templates first before adding content, add my place holders and off I go.

    I have even go so far as to have different templates for different sections of the site. So for instance I have a different template for my Decorating Articles pages and a different template for Decorating Room by Room and even a different set of templates for my store pages the have to be run as php. It’s easy to use and I as a non techie I can create pages that work and look good.

    I wish it had stuff like WP does like pinging, allowing my to add content in future dates, etc but it doesn’t so I just have to deal with not having those features and have to use other means to get links in and marketing “old fashioned” like.

    Hope this explains what I did and how I did it. I used Josh’s document on how to build WP sites as well as some of what Dr. Andy teaches about switching a html site to WP. It just back fired on me and I needed to get my revenue back up. It took 2 months to get back up to where I was.

    Any other questions, just let me know.

    Rhonda Morin

51. Jim (5 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 2:54 pm 

    Rhonda,

    I get Dr. Andy’s newsletter and in issue # 229 he said he was stopping his work on his website builder and was migrating all of his websites sites to Wordpress.

    In other newsletters he discusses how to perform the conversion process and has a case study on a conversion where his results were the opposite of what you experienced.

    To quote Dr. Andy, “Wordpress has been like a breath of fresh air, and a joy to use.”

    You might want to check out some of his tutorials on how to do the conversion yet maintain your rankings.

    Jim

52. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 3:25 pm 

    Jim,

    For a long time I followed people blindly, James Martell and Rosalind Gardner to start. The I found Dr. Andy, then Jon Leger then Josh. To a point I still blindly follow Dr. Andy, Jon and Josh. I am more careful now however.

    I read Dr. Andy’s newsletter and I use what I can from it. I understand what he says and it’s the reason I wanted to switch to WP. I bought his HTML to WP ebook. Followed it step by step. Some of the items I didn’t need so I used Josh’s book and then went to Firepow. All of it just didn’t work for me.

    I will continue to use the version of SEO WSB until he completely stops updating it or fixing bugs and perhaps I will ease back into WP. I honestly LOVED it and I am not saying it didn’t make my life way easier. I am just saying for a site that was online for 10 years and bringing in a certain number of visitors per day to drop in half and to lose revenue so badly was a horrible shock and I had to act quick to bring it back up. Maybe had I waited longer I would be seeing more revenue today but at the time I just had horrible nightmares of being removed from the google index and as it’s my only form of income, I did need to act quick.

    And to show that Google did pick the pages up, when I searched and had the auxiliary links below my website listing, all the links were pointing to the new WP pages within hours of changing over. Google visiting and updating was not an issue at all.

    I don’t know. I love WP and would love to have all my sites running it but for me and my main site, I can’t afford to lose the money.

    How long should I wait to see the leveling off of traffic and revenue when switching from html to WP? Any other ideas to keep the inflow of visitors as well as the revenue dollars up? I am all ears, eyes.

    Rhonda

53. Jim (5 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 3:56 pm 

    Rhonda,

    In the end, what we find that works for us individually is what we have to do. I was not trying to start an argument, and I do not think you took it that way.

    I simply wanted to make sure that you had ail of the information to make the best decision.

    If I were in your shoes I would most likely do the same as you did.

    Jim

54. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 4:10 pm 

    Jim,

    Exactly, I did not take your post as argumentative nor negative. If you or anyone can show me how to make WP work for me without killing visitors or revenue, I am wide open to suggestions. I WANT to use WP. Help?

    Rhonda

55. Carlos (12 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 4:37 pm 

    You WANT to use WordPress?

    I wouldn’t use it if you paid me! I am not a WordPress hater mind you. I don’t hate WordPress.

    I just think it is bloated and overkill. Like taking a tank down to the local convenience store to get a loaf of bread. Most of us take WordPress on faith. We hear that it does great SEO for us and we believe it. We hear that it causes sites to rank well and we believe it. The masses have spoken but….

    As is the case in most of human history…the masses may well be and are probably wrong!

    I am a web developer and am designing my own system. To help me develop Adsense sites quickly and easily. And in part because I have been training one of my clients who is absolutely and incredibly one of the most computer illiterate persons I have ever met.

    WordPress would sink them. It would go way over their head! Something simpler is needed.

    For all the talk around about how easy WordPress is to use…the fact is that it is NOT! It gets complicated. Ever try keeping up on updating 20 web sites you have installed WordPress on when an security update is called for? Oh…you can install WordPress MU (multi-user) but that gets even more complicated.

    WordPress is a hog of both resources and memory.

    I develop sites locally on my computer before uploading to a server. It absolutely kills my local computer memory wise with it’s 20 MySQL accesses per web page bloatedness.

    Yes…I can set up WP caching mechanisms but…you guessed it! Most people hardly know what caching is and it would be way over their head to install such things.

    WordPress is great in one sense if you do things exactly out of the box on a hosted server where the hosting company will do most things for you. But heaven help the average person who starts digging into their non-standard PHP code way of doing things (I as a web developer who is near expert in PHP had a bit trouble figuring out what in the world they are doing in their source code at first! In their attempt to dumb it down or make easy to understand for the masses they actually made it harder to understand).

    The idea of plugins is great but security holes keep opening up through plugins that are written by people who don’t know the first thing about web security.

    I haven’t even touched on how your code, yup…your code, MUST be licensed under the GPL since it’s a derivative of WordPress if you create your own theme for it.

    I prefer a much simpler, meaner, leaner, and easily maintained system. Like I said I wouldn’t use WordPress if you paid me…well…unless you gave me a lot of money I guess LOL.

    Carlos

56. Jim (5 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 4:55 pm 

    Rhonda,

    Based on your comments it certainly looks as if you have done everything except maybe wait a little longer.

    If I were converting I would make sure that the filenames were identical including the directory path.

    I would make sure that any path that was not exactly duplicated had a permanent redirect(301) and I would keep close track of my log files and find any 404 not found errors and fix them immediately either by adjusting the URL or with a 301 redirect.

    If you think about it Rhonda, when you switch everything out and you have all redirects in place you should not see an immediate drop in traffic because it would take at least a couple of days to be crawled and then longer to be added to the index.

    So if all paths are exactly the same or redirected and Search Engine’s indexes have not been updated and links from outer websites are pointing to the same place, there should be no change in your traffic.

    That should only occur after your site has been crawled and the indexes updated.

    If you did not monitor your web logs the answer may be hidden there…

57. Scott (5 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 6:40 pm 

    Josh,

    I like Wordpress for one main reason. It is great for content management. It is easy to build a site without any knowledge of html or using something like Dreamweaver or Xsite Pro. Of course all the other things that you stated are icing on the cake.

    I have on Wordpress blog that receives a little more than 100 uniques per day. The only thing that I do to this site is to add fresh content, period.

    Once again, thanks for your insights.

    Best,

    Scott

58. Rhonda Morin (11 comments.)
    29th October, 2009 at 8:00 pm 

    Carols, keep me posted about your project, I would be open to something easy to use that might have some cool and dumbed down features.

    Josh, caused quite a controversy you did!!!!

    Rhonda
    rhonda@myinteriordecorator.com

59. Rolf
    30th October, 2009 at 1:06 am 

    Josh,

    I could not agree more! Google is a business and is out there to sell their ads so to speak.

    There is really no difference between a standard HTML page and blog post as such.

    But quite correctly, blogs are easier because of the factors you mention.

    Too see what the Google robot really sees there is Firefox plugin called Fang (or Fangs?) which show you what it really does see – try it – it is very “refreshing” …:)

    I can’t help mentioning this duplicae content thing as well. I don’t believe it unless it is on your own site. Why would Google mind if your article is all over the internet as long as it in places where people spend time reading it? It gives them a possibility to sell more ads, does it not?

    And how could you avid duplicate content if you are a MD writing a high level article on diabetes. You will have to use the exact same medical terms as anyone else. You can’t use slang or imprecise ordinary language. Google knows this very well ….

    Best wishes

60. World Method
    30th October, 2009 at 4:30 pm 

    If you want to experiment with ads on a blog, a good wordpress theme can do the job.
    if you want to create lots of little blogs, but without the hassle of maintaining lots of separate wordpress installations, you install WordPress MU and maintain one installation for all your blogs (many separate wordpress installations which would be a recipe for madness)
    If you want to monetize microniche websites specifically (what I do) then you may need something specially built for microniche websites.
    If you like set and forget – forget wordpress – you will have to perform the updates.
    If you like powerful admin, tools, plugins and massive community for your objectives- use wordpress.
    If you are not techy and don’t want to be, buy a hosted solution that’s managed for you.
    In short, choose the right tools for the job you want to do

61. David @ Computer sales and support (8 comments.)
    30th October, 2009 at 7:21 pm 

    If you have host like Bluehost and use simple scripts, updating Wordpress is trivial

62. Joe (10 comments.)
    1st November, 2009 at 3:31 pm 

    Exactly, I never believed that any search engine would care about the platform as long as the content was relevant to the search topic.

    I just so happens that WordPress blogs inherently make it easier seo your site right off the bat, along with plugins that make it easier.

    Thank Josh!

63. chandan (2 comments.)
    3rd November, 2009 at 2:10 pm 

    I also prefer wordpress blog. Although I am using blogger blog, but I think blogger blog are not so good like wordpress blog. There are no plug in to use on blogger blog.

64. John (1 comments.)
    4th November, 2009 at 6:15 pm 

    In some ways I think the platform helps but I would have to totally disagree or would cry foul if Google for example prefers WP over any other blogging platforms. But keeping it static, won’t that be too hard especially those that don’t have a background on programming/HTML and the likes? At least with CMS-like platforms the user is saved from doing all the tedious task of manually doing it, getting him/her more hours to do more things that actually helps promote the website instead of burying his/her head in a header file, or whatever, all day trying to make it work.

65. KenT (1 comments.)
    10th November, 2009 at 6:10 am 

    Hey Josh, thanks for your take.

    I’ve been sorta brain-washed by the WP community, especially marketers selling WP templates and other products that WP is “loved” by Google, giving me the impression that by using WP you’ll get GoogleLove. But as you mentioned, with WP it’s in the ‘ping’.

    I stopped at 3 WP site and went with RapidWeaver for Macs, and I’ve never looked back.

    I really feel for those people that have a bunch of WP sites because I found myself spending more time that I wanted on “updating.” Yes, I know you don’t always have to update, but I love to keep up with the latest.

    I’m having some small growing success with both platforms, so I’ve found a best of both worlds for me. A couple of WP sites that are easy to manage and knock-myself-out-go-crazy making RW sites.

66. Ann @ How To Make A Website (12 comments.)
    23rd December, 2009 at 12:00 am 

    I agree with everything you said. Being that I run several static sites and blogs, I have never seen any evidence that SE’s prefer blogs. They are great for easy design, and super quick for adding fresh content at any time and from anywhere.