Is WordPress bad for SEO?

WordPress is software the owner installs and controls, on hosting the owner chooses. Nothing about the site is fixed by a platform.

• Every title, description and address can be set.
• The structure of the site can be whatever the business needs.
• The theme, and so the code behind each page, can be changed or replaced.
• The hosting can be moved.
• The whole site can be exported and taken elsewhere.

Website builders such as Wix and Squarespace do not offer the last three in full.

Control means responsibility. WordPress, its theme and each plugin need updating. Backups and security are the owner’s to arrange. A site nobody maintains still works, for a while, and gets slower and more exposed as it ages.

The usual faults are in how the site was put together, and all of them can be fixed.

• Too many plugins, each adding scripts to every page.
• A heavy theme or page builder loading far more than the page uses.
• No caching, so each page is built afresh for every visitor.
• Cheap hosting that answers slowly.
• The setting that hides the site from search engines, left on from when it was built.

Our guides to speeding up a WordPress website and to a WordPress site not showing on Google cover the fixes.

The choice is between control and convenience. A builder such as Wix or Squarespace does the upkeep and fixes the limits. WordPress hands over both. A business that will maintain its site, or pay someone to, gets more from WordPress. One that will not is better served by a builder, until it reaches the builder’s limits. Our guide to whether Wix is slower than WordPress sets the options side by side.

Three checks show where a WordPress site stands.

1. Type site: and your domain into Google, to confirm the pages are indexed.
2. Measure your home page on mobile in PageSpeed Insights, then measure a competitor’s for the same search.
3. Count the plugins. For each, name what it does for a visitor.

If the site is indexed, fast and lean, WordPress is doing its job. If it is slow, the cause is on the list above, and unlike on a builder, every item on that list can be changed.