Best WordPress SEO Rankings
I understand why those who don’t understand search engine optimization as well as I do see Yoast as the best SEO plugin, search Google for WordPress SEO and the Yoast plugin is number 2 in Google and the WordPress.org WordPress SEO plugin page for Yoast is number 1.
Competing for WordPress SEO SERPs is very impressive, but is it due to the Yoast SEO package running on yoast.com (Yoast plugin, Yoast Genesis child theme, using an expensive CDN and webhosting etc…) or something else?
Looking at the WordPress SEO Google SERP alone it really does look like the Yoast plugin in combination with a Genesis child theme by Yoast must be awesome. After all, how else could the Yoast domain rank so high for such a competitive SERP?
Many make this fundamental flaw in understanding search engine results, good search engine results do NOT mean good on-page/on-site SEO.
The Yoast domain has a PR6 (or it did when Google showed public PageRank) home page (understand PageRank tutorial), with so many high quality backlinks (takes a lot to get to PR6) you have no idea how good their on-page SEO is just by looking at SERPs.
The WordPress SEO SERP could be just backlinks, add enough backlinks to almost any website (without going black hat and breaking Google’s webmaster guidelines) and it will rank for competitive SERPs even with awful on-page SEO: see the Googlebomb SEO tactic from the past, indicates the power of backlinks and anchor text (Googlebombs are no longer effective, but the SEO concept is still valid).
The main Yoast developer was an SEO branding genius naming his plugin “WordPress SEO by Yoast”, before Joost de Valk built his SEO plugin the top WordPress SEO plugin was the All In One SEO Pack Plugin, note it lacks the keyword WordPress which means when people link to All In One SEO they are less likely to use WordPress as the anchor text. Yoast however will generate lots of backlinks with the anchor text WordPress, anchor text is still very powerful SEO wise.
Yoast and the Yoast plugin page on WordPress.org will have millions of backlinks using “WordPress SEO” and derivatives as anchor text. This can be more than enough off-site SEO to compete for competitive SERPs like WordPress SEO.
Ask yourself why is WordPress.org above Yoast for the WordPress SEO SERP?
WordPress has significantly more backlinks, Yoast PR6 home page, WordPress PR9 home page. Yoast can’t compete with WordPress.org: WordPress.org off-site SEO (which is all naturally generated backlinks) beats Yoast backlinks + Yoasts on-page poor SEO.
This important fact that off-site SEO is more important than on-site SEO will again fall on deaf ears in the WordPress community, actual rankings do not necessarily indicate how good an SEO expert is at on-page SEO because off-site SEO is more important.
I’m wasting my time writing this, your average WordPress user won’t understand this :-(
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