No, seriously, is this one of the ways Google looks at your website?
I was looking at some of my website ranking results, as for some reason this came to mind.
I have Blogs based on WordPress, Websites based on Joomla and more recently I am running a Drupal based website.
Results from the Blog come in fast, lets say within a week or so.
For Joomla and Drupal sites it takes longer to rank for the targeted keywords, mostly weeks and some months.
But the Blog results are dropping as fast as they come up, in a few weeks they are dropping of page one and decline over time.
The CMS results stay pretty much on the same position were they rank over time.
Now Steve of Alledia does a test with WordPress, Joomla and Drupal and he was trying to figure out what was causing WordPress to start so well, but runs into trouble later on.
It could of course be due to the explanation of SeoRefugee in his Post Google Irregular Content Upgrade
Which would explain the burst in Search Engine referral visitors after adding content to this Blog.
But how does Google determine what is a Blog and what is an “regular” Content website?
Is it the timely updates, or is there more?
Looking at the Source Code
What I am wondering is, looking at my websites results, is Google using the “meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress 2.1.2″ from your source code to determine what kind of site you run?
Look at WordPress, it has the tag in the source code “meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress 2.1.2″
Joomla has the basic “meta name=”Generator” content=”Joomla! – Copyright (C) 2005 – 2006 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.”
But Drupal, by most considered the best Content Management System for Search Engine Optimization has No Reference to the System at all !!
If you use the Joomla SEF patch from Joomlatwork.com the tag mentioned above is stripped, along with other improvements.
Although the reason for stripping is more of a security issue for the Guys at Joomlatwork.
But websites with the patch run better than before the patch was applied.
So to try out some of this stuff, I am now running this Blog without the Code, although its probably to late, because Google probably already determined that this is a Blog.
But does this mean that if you want to start with WordPress to Build a website just like a Content Management System, that you need to strip the code before going live?
P.s. The code is mostly part of the Template.
And how about a Joomla based website? Should you strip the code as well, because Google ranks Joomla as a technical more easy CMS than if people make the effort of building there own without code?
That would mean that the SEF patch is even more important then you should think.
Google Patent
From Google’s patent request there is one part that says:
“38. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more types of history data includes domain-related information corresponding to domains associated with documents; and wherein the generating a score includes: analyzing domain-related information corresponding to a domain associated with the document over time, and scoring the document based, at least in part, on a result of the analyzing. ”
Is this also one of the “domain-related information”? What do you think?
I’ve been thinking about this recently – how google profiles “spammy” sites and how that might affect “non-spammy” sites.
For instance if a lot of spammy sites start using one type of software, like say WordPress for example, would that become one factor in a profile that might drag sites down in a certain context.
I’m not saying it would be a massive effect but proclaiming your generator in the metatags may have unintended consequences when combined with another “bad” characteristic like the creation of a lot of content to start a website. Just a thought…
@ScottH
Good thinking,
Although most “real” Spam sites will use a system that does not have the generator content Tag enclosed.
But what about pages at .blogspot.com?
Which is really becoming the greatest spam site off all..
Do you see theme ranking well? with a few exceptions that is, most of them are not found in the indexes, not even in Google itself!
And they do have a key: < meta content='blogger' name='generator'/ > :-)
Does that key still comes with the pages if you host them on you own domain? And does that hurt you?
If someone knows the answer to that question, would be nice to know!
I have noticed that Google ranks sites that I code from scratch much better in the serps than the one I launch using WordPress. Not sure about Joomla or Drupal. Joomla and the like are a bit too heavy (too much for one person) , in my opinion, for the lone webmaster.
@ D.Shaun,
I corrected your spelling, just as you mentioned, you do now how to write…
The Fun part of the Story is that Matt Cutts in his Latest Presentation on WordPress Blogging request the WordPress builders to get rid of the Generator Tag…. for Security reasons, but still…
Thanks for the lead on the Joomla SEF patch from Joomlatwork.com; i’ve wondered how to get rid of that line…hoping they have a 1.5 native version?!? Thanks again!
@Bidless
No, Joomla 1.5 has the line still in it, but there is a patch already…
Isn’t there a way or a program you can check your site to see it like google sees it?
@Club Penguin, yes there are several options:
http://www.pathos-seo.com/seo-website-tools/how-does-a-search-engine-spider-see-your-website.html for an online check
You can use Opera like I wrote on at http://blog.hummerbie.com/why-i-love-opera/
or you can download Lynx from http://lynx.isc.org/current/ but thats more for really frequent use.
Personaly I prefer the Opera Browser for these kind of checks