Are Wordpress sites being dinged by Google? Read a few articles regarding.

[JChronicle]

I read a couple "SEO" related articles that sites built in Wordpress are going to be dinged by Google because Google sees Wordpress sites as simple to make and a higher potential to be "spammy".

Is there any truth to this?  Your thoughts?

I do give "thumbs up" and "best answer" marks and appreciate receiving thumbs up myself...

Thanks

[NakulGoyal]

Wordpress is like any other CMS. The same problem of SPAM exists with Google's Blogspot. Spam is everywhere and I don't think the Search engines are trying to use "What CMS are you using" to decide if you are SPAM.

I would not worry about getting penalized "Just because you decided to use Wordpress as a CMS/Blogging platform".

There are tons and tons of great, high authority, ranking websites made with all kinds of CMS platforms including Wordpress. So, I would say there's no merit to this.

Google's Matt Cutt's own blog is Wordpress Powered if that helps

[edwardrj]

I highly doubt it...

WordPress powers roughly 54 percent of websites managed by a CMS, and approximately 15 percent of the top 1 million websites in the world.

http://om4.com.au/client/wordpress-market-share/

[manchestermichael]

Hi James

Nakul is spot on of course. Just wondering if the articles you read were speculating about Wpress as a CMS or site specifically hosted on Wordpress.com?

cheers

Michael

[MarieHaynes]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a Wordpress site.  They're popular and as such there will be more Wordpress sites that have penalties or are affect by algo changes, simply because more of them exist!

I do believe that it is possible, however, for poor Wordpress structure to contribute to a Panda problem.  Many wordpress sites have duplicate content because the same content can be found on:

example.com,

example.com/post-about-green-widgets/

example.com/category/green-widgets/

example.com/author/example-author/

example.com/tag/green-widgets/

Matt Cutts has said in the past, however, that Google is pretty good at figuring out issues such as multiple pages being created by tag pages in WP.  But, I'm wondering if having this type of duplication on top of other Panda issues could be enough to push some sites into a situation where Panda filters them.

Having a Wordpress site will not cause you to get a Penguin issue as this is about the links TO the site.  However, I think some sites that benefitted from making free wordpress themes got affected by Penguin b/c of anchor texted footer links.

I have several wordpress sites and will continue to build more.

(p.s.  It's kind of cheezy to ask for thumbs up.  It's not likely to make anyone give you one.    )

[JChronicle]

Cheesy sometimes works  I just gave you one... Also thank you for your response.  Interesting info regarding the anchor texts in the footer links.

[JChronicle]

Thanks for your reply.  I had the same thoughts but figured I would run it by my fellow experts here on seomoz

[RockyOutcrop]

No google will not punish Wordpress sites specifically. The Yoast SEO pluggin for Wordpress is a great way to help manage your Wordpress SEO if you have not already heard of it I would check it out. The chap who made it is also full of excellent advice.

[EGOL]

I read a couple "SEO" related articles that sites built in Wordpress are going to be dinged by Google because Google sees Wordpress sites as simple to make and a higher potential to be "spammy".

Oh man.... that's really funny.

IMO..... Blogspot and bogger and sites.google.com have tons more crap sin that wordpress.

Combine the above with YouTube and Google is probably the largest host for crap, spin  and infringement on the entire planet.

[JChronicle]

I will have to try to find them.  I saw them about a month ago and had been meaning to post it.  Do you see any out there?