If you want to know why<\/em> we came to our conclusions, then we\u2019ve got all the info you need coming up\u2026<\/p>\n But hey, we know you might be busy. So if you\u2019re just looking for a quick answer, here it is!<\/p>\n The best CMS for SEO in 2024 is also the world\u2019s most popular: WordPress. This was the case when we tested them three years ago too, so it\u2019s not really a surprise.<\/p>\n However, Joomla (particularly version 5) runs it close. And although Joomla already did very well in our last test, it seems to have improved quite a bit since then.<\/p>\n But when combined with the YOAST SEO plugin, WordPress\u2019s out-of-the-box speed, full control over all on-page SEO fundamentals, and huge community support still give it the edge.<\/p>\n While WordPress and Joomla can be classified as fully-fledged CMS systems, the other three platforms we tested (Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy) are better classified into the subcategory \u201cwebsite building platforms\u201d. Wix was still the clear winner in this subcategory, offering much greater control over SEO fundamentals than its peers.<\/p>\n Wix has actually improved quite a bit since our last test, which wasn\u2019t the case for the other website-building platforms. So, as well as awarding it the title of \u201cbest website building platform for SEO\u201d we also feel it\u2019s the fastest improving CMS when it comes to SEO basics.<\/p>\n There are a ton<\/em> of CMS systems out there.<\/p>\n But we decided to focus our testing on the most popular content-focused<\/em> CMS systems by market share (with one exception).<\/p>\n Why do we say content-focused?<\/p>\n Well, technically Shopify is a CMS. Indeed, according to w3techs<\/a> it\u2019s currently the second most popular CMS on the planet. But we\u2019re sure most would agree that Shopify is better classed as an eCommerce platform.<\/p>\n So we skipped Shopify and selected the other four most popular CMS systems in w3techs top five:<\/p>\n For our final selection, we decided to deviate from using popularity for selection.<\/p>\n The next most popular content-focused CMS system by market share is currently Drupal (1.3%). But we believe that much of this share is likely to be made up of legacy sites. Google Trends shows that its popularity has been on a serious<\/em> decline ever since its peak around 2010.<\/p>\n So instead we jumped the list a bit and chose to test GoDaddy\u2019s Website Builder.<\/p>\n GoDaddy continues to be the world\u2019s largest individual domain registrar.<\/p>\n And while their Website Builder has a low overall market share (0.5%), we feel that it is likely to include a disproportionately high number of small businesses.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because anyone who registers a domain on GoDaddy (currently around 15% of monthly domain registrations<\/a>) is going to get bombarded with upsells to create their site using GoDaddy\u2019s Website Builder.<\/p>\n They\u2019re going to be getting their CMS in front of a lot of small business owners, many of whom will be looking to launch a website quickly, simply, and fuss-free. That\u2019s the perfect customer for their platform, and the more targeted marketing is, the more effective it is.<\/p>\n So with GoDaddy selected for testing, here\u2019s what our final list looked like.<\/p>\n You can click the links if you want to read the newly updated individual reviews.<\/em><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s look at how we conducted our tests.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll start this section by getting something out of the way.<\/p>\n The CMS system you choose is only a part \u2014 perhaps even a small one \u2014 of whether or not your site will be successful in search.<\/p>\n Because if your content sucks, you disregard SEO fundamentals, and you don\u2019t pull in some high-quality links, then\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026you ain\u2019t going to rank.<\/p>\n In other words:<\/p>\n A site running on the \u201cworst\u201d CMS for SEO could still outrank a site running on the \u201cbest\u201d one.<\/p>\n But what we can say is that the CMS you choose will either help or hinder your SEO efforts.<\/p>\n Which is why we decided to focus on measurable, platform-specific metrics. Primarily:<\/p>\n Now we should point out here that speed is also going to be theme and (in some cases) hosting-dependent.<\/p>\n For that reason, we again used popularity to pick themes to test.<\/p>\n And for self-hosted sites (WordPress and Joomla) we used identical server setups\/hosting.<\/p>\n Each site was set up with similar content.<\/p>\n And we kept external plugins\/extensions to a minimum to get as close to an \u201cout-of-the-box\u201d configuration as possible.<\/p>\n Although we did install an industry-standard SEO plugin on both WordPress (YOAST<\/a>) and Joomla (Route66<\/a>), and recommended a couple of image compression plugins.<\/p>\n Once our demo sites were set up, the testing process for each CMS included:<\/p>\n So let\u2019s dig into how our CMS platforms performed. We\u2019ll start by reviewing speed.<\/p>\n Speed matters for rankings.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the few signals that Google has confirmed<\/a> influences rankings.<\/p>\n We measured the performance of each of our test sites using Google\u2019s PageSpeed Insights.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a summary of the results\u2026<\/p>\n It\u2019s not even close.<\/p>\n The self-hosted sites (Joomla and WordPress) significantly outperformed the sites built with platform-hosted CMS systems.<\/p>\n Our WordPress test site was fastest overall. But Joomla ran it close. Both CMS systems were super quick out-the-box and passed Google\u2019s Core Web Vitals<\/a> (CWV) tests with flying colors.<\/p>\n Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy on the other hand all suffered speed issues and our test sites would be likely to fail CWV (even though the performance of real-world websites improved significantly<\/a> for all three CMS compared to a few years ago).<\/p>\n So what was slowing our test sites down?<\/p>\n Well, while they all had their own little quirks (you can read the individual reviews for more detail), there was a common denominator:<\/p>\n Blanket loading of scripts and styles.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t need the script for that fancy homepage carousel? Tough. You\u2019re getting it on every<\/em> page of your site regardless.<\/p>\n Although this seems to have gotten better over the years, the core of the platform-hosted CMS systems is still pretty heavy and bloated, and there\u2019s no simple way to turn things on and off.<\/p>\n This is clearly less than ideal, and leads to this\u2026<\/p>\n A bunch of warnings and inefficiencies that could, for the most part, be prevented..<\/p>\n That particular test is from our Squarespace site. But the same issue affected Wix and GoDaddy Website Builder.<\/p>\n For example, on our GoDaddy Website Builder site, script execution took almost 11 seconds..<\/p>\n This is a LOT.<\/p>\n In short: yes (probably).<\/strong><\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re on Wix, GoDaddy Website Builder, or Squarespace, you should<\/em> be able to speed up your site with some technical knowledge, time, and (probably) some spare cash for an extension or two.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve certainly seen some fast Wix sites out there.<\/p>\n Plus, a good percentage of sites using any of these CMSs perform pretty well according to the Core Web Vitals Technology Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n But for the non-technical user who just wants to use the platform to pick a theme, launch a site, and work on content, speed issues are likely going to hinder rankings.<\/p>\n And in our opinion, that type of user is likely to make up most of Wix, GoDaddy Website Builder and Squarespace\u2019s client base. After all, launching a site quicklyand not requiring technical knowledge are the selling points of those platforms, right?<\/p>\n So we hope that future builds continue addressing the out-of-he-box issues with speed.<\/p>\n We should also point out here that this was the out-of-the-box speed of our WordPress and Joomla sites. With some page speed optimization<\/a>, we\u2019d certainly be able to get them to run even faster and\/or continue running fast with more content\/features on the site.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s turn our attention to control of some of the fundamental on-page SEO factors.<\/p>\n And since a picture tells a thousand words, we\u2019ll start with a visual summary, which includes an overall score (out of 21) for each CMS.<\/p>\n And to give you an idea of how each CMS performed in our last test a few years ago, here are the old test results:<\/p>\n Not a big difference.<\/p>\n As you can see there\u2019s still a large disparity in the capabilities of the platforms, with the self-hosted CMS systems (Joomla and WordPress) offering much more control. Some platforms improved, but improvement seems to be pretty slow for the worse performing CMSs like GoDaddy Website Builder and Squarespace.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a closer look at how each platform supports (or doesn\u2019t support) some of these on-page SEO fundamentals.<\/p>\n Note<\/em><\/strong>: Having control of an SEO ranking factor is not equal to its optimization. SEO audit tools like <\/em>Seobility<\/em><\/a> offer advice on how to properly optimize each element, and find errors in optimization that may be holding back your site. <\/em>See our SEO audit guide<\/em><\/a> for more information on how to fully optimize your website.<\/em><\/p>\n A page\u2019s title continues to be one of the most important on-page ranking factors. And a well-written meta description can help you get more click-throughs (although Google won\u2019t always use it).<\/p>\n Bare minimum? The ability to create custom SEO titles and meta descriptions for each page.<\/p>\n But we also wanted to see search snippet previews (mobile and desktop) and a way to template titles and meta descriptions.<\/p>\n WordPress (with YOAST) was the only CMS that gave us everything we wanted.<\/p>\n YOAST makes it super simple to control your titles and meta descriptions, preview how your snippets will look in search, and create templated title\/description formats.<\/p>\n Joomla (with Route66) was close but lacked a simple way to create templates. Although it can be done with some basic code.<\/p>\n And Wix and Squarespace also performed reasonably well, with only mobile snippet previews missing from our checklist.<\/p>\n How about GoDaddy?<\/p>\n Yikes\u2026<\/p>\n It\u2019s not even possible to create a custom title\/description for each page on your GoDaddy site, as the option is missing on blog posts. This was also the case when we last tested GoDaddy Website Builder, even though it seems like a pretty easy feature to add.<\/p>\n They get a little credit for desktop snippet previews (no mobile), but other than that, it was a big fat fail with little to no improvement in the past 3 years.<\/p>\n We recommend creating short, descriptive, 2-3-word slugs, including the primary keyword (or phrase) for each page. And use hyphens to separate words.<\/p>\n The ability to set a custom, SEO-friendly URL for each page.<\/p>\n All the CMS systems we tested allowed full control over URLs, except for\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026you guessed it, GoDaddy.<\/p>\n These results were the same as the last round of tests we did.<\/p>\n Again, while it was possible (although highly unintuitive) to set a custom URL for standard pages, on blog posts the option was completely missing without a strange workaround.<\/p>\n On smaller sites, you probably won\u2019t need to worry about this.<\/p>\n But if you have a series of similar pages on your site \u2014 i.e. targeting the same keywords, or with very small variations in content \u2014 there may be times when you\u2019ll want to set a canonical (master) URL.<\/p>\n This helps to avoid duplicate content issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ability to set a custom canonical URL for each page.<\/p>\n On our WordPress, Joomla, and Wix sites, we were able to set a custom canonical URL for each page.<\/p>\n On Squarespace there was a long, complicated workaround with custom code which means it\u2019s technically possible but not at all intuitive.<\/p>\n On GoDaddy Website Builder, it\u2019s not possible to add canonical tags.<\/p>\n So, in short: No changes since the last time we tested this.<\/p>\n The robots meta tag instructs Google to either index (1), or not to index (2) a page:<\/p>\n You don\u2019t actually need the first one as (assuming your page meets their quality standards) indexing is Google\u2019s default action. But it doesn\u2019t do any harm to have it in place.<\/p>\n The ability to control indexing (through a robots meta tag) for each page.<\/p>\n Again, WordPress, Joomla, and Wix had this covered.<\/p>\n Squarespace allowed us to noindex regular pages, but for some reason didn\u2019t give us the option on blog posts.<\/p>\n But at least this was better than GoDaddy\u2019s Website Builder, which didn\u2019t give us an easy way to noindex any<\/em> of our site\u2019s pages.<\/p>\n You may notice a theme here\u2026<\/p>\n Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc) help Google understand the structure, and topic(s) of your page.<\/p>\n They should be properly nested.<\/p>\n For example, an h1 tag would generally be the main topic (level 1), an h2 could be a subtopic (level 2), and an h3 could be a sub-sub topic (level 3), etc:<\/p>\n The ability to set a full range of headings from H1-H6.<\/p>\n No issues with WordPress, Wix, and Joomla, we got the full range from H1-H6.<\/p>\n This is a positive change from last time, as Wix has added more heading tags. In the past, it would limit you to h1, h2 and h3 on blog posts, which is no longer the case.<\/p>\n Squarespace restricted us to H1-H4 sitewide.<\/p>\n How about GoDaddy?<\/p>\n Another hot mess.<\/p>\n On regular pages, there\u2019s no way to set the heading tags you want, GoDaddy will just choose one for you. They often chose wrong.<\/p>\n And on blog posts, hit the \u201cT\u201d button and you\u2019re getting an H4 whether you like it or not.<\/p>\n (It\u2019s H4s all the way down)<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not familiar with structured data and its impact on SEO, we recommend reading our rich snippets guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ability to add custom schema to pages and blog posts.<\/p>\n Both YOAST for WordPress and Route66 for Joomla have excellent support for schema.<\/p>\n To add custom schema to a page on Wix or Squarespace, you\u2019ll need to generate your markup externally, then copy and paste it into the platform.<\/p>\n Wix makes it obvious where to add your code and has improved its UI when compared to the last time we ran this test\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026but for adding schema to a page on Squarespace you\u2019ll still need to use the \u201cPage Header Code Injection\u201d setting under advanced page settings.<\/p>\n We recommend this free tool<\/a> for generating schema in JSON-LD format.<\/p>\n There is no simple way to add schema markup to a page on a GoDaddy site. Surprised? By this stage, probably not.<\/p>\n The three most important elements of image SEO are:<\/p>\n Generally, we were looking for the platform to support alt text, and not mess with image filenames. But some form of image compression was a nice bonus.<\/p>\n Out-of-the-box, all platforms support alt text.<\/p>\n Yes, even GoDaddy.<\/p>\n In fact, we\u2019ll go further and give a hats off to GoDaddy on compression as they\u2019ll automatically create and serve optimized WebP versions of uploaded images (as will Wix).<\/p>\n But before we get ahead of ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026we should point out that they\u2019ll also mess around with filenames. Again, ditto Wix.<\/p>\n WordPress and Joomla won\u2019t automatically compress your images. But Imagify<\/a> for WordPress, and Image Recycle<\/a> for Joomla are widely used and will do the trick nicely.<\/p>\n HTTPS has been a confirmed Google ranking signal since 2014.<\/p>\n And these days there\u2019s really no excuse for any site to still be running over HTTP. Notwithstanding any SEO benefits, it\u2019s unsecure.<\/p>\n If your site is hosted by Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy, you\u2019ll get HTTPS by default.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re on WordPress or Joomla, then setting it up will be your responsibility.<\/p>\n A robots.txt file allows you to stop search engine bots from accessing certain areas of your site.<\/p>\n For example, you might have a section with user-generated content that you don\u2019t want crawled or indexed by Google.<\/p>\n The ability to edit a site\u2019s robots.txt file, either via FTP or through the admin area.<\/p>\n As WordPress and Joomla are self-hosted you can access your site\u2019s robots.txt file through FTP.<\/p>\n And there are a host of free and paid plugins available to make this easier, like this one<\/a> for WordPress and these<\/a> for Joomla.<\/p>\n Wix admin also gives you full control of your robots.txt file.<\/p>\n However, unfortunately, there\u2019s no way to edit the robots.txt file on a Squarespace or GoDaddy site.<\/p>\n This seems like a pretty easy feature to add, yet no changes have been made since our last test.<\/p>\n An XML sitemap helps Google find (and index) all the pages on your site.<\/p>\n Firstly for an XML sitemap (or sitemaps) to be auto-generated and maintained by the platform, and secondly for the ability to hide\/remove noindex pages from the sitemap.<\/p>\n While all the CMS systems we tested created a sitemap, only Joomla and WordPress allowed us to manually control which pages were included. Wix and Squarespace automatically remove noindex pages from the sitemap, and GoDaddy gives you no control at all.<\/p>\n When designing your site, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll be focusing on how it looks on desktop.<\/p>\n But mobile traffic overtook desktop traffic way back in 2017. And Google now prioritizes the mobile version of your site for crawling and indexing.<\/p>\n Whether or not your site is mobile friendly is more likely to come down to theme choice, rather than CMS.<\/p>\n So if you spot any mobile usability errors<\/p>\n the first thing to check should be your theme.<\/p>\n Because all CMS systems are (still) perfectly capable of hosting a mobile-friendly site.<\/p>\n Note:<\/em><\/strong> HTTPS and mobile-friendliness are both confirmed Google ranking factors, which is why we included them in our tests. However, we didn\u2019t factor them into the overall scores as they don\u2019t really provide more SEO control for users \u2014 they are either covered by the platform or not. In any case, both factors are covered by all the CMS systems we tested and would not influence the final positions.<\/em><\/p>\n 301 Redirects can be used to tell search engine crawlers and browsers that a resource (e.g. HTML file) has been permanently moved to a different URL. From an SEO perspective, they are important as they can pass on the relevance and link juice<\/a> of a page to its new URL.<\/p>\n Four out of the five CMS systems we tested allow you to set up 301 redirects on the platform itself or by using an obvious extension\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026but once again, GoDaddy (still) dares to be different.<\/p>\n Although it\u2019s not part of our main tests, this time around, we also looked at some of the extra features and new additions the CMSs offered.<\/p>\n Of course, self-hosted CMSs like WordPress and Joomla have third parties developing and improving on plugins constantly. There\u2019s no real way to cover them all here, but it\u2019s safe to say that there\u2019s steady improvment and new features being added regularly.<\/p>\n However, when it comes to the website building platforms, adding new features is up to the companies behind them. So, seeing new\/extra features and improvements being made regularly is very important.<\/p>\n Both Wix and Squarespace have an SEO checklist to walk beginners through basic optimizations. Now, granted, following these checklists will only get you so far, but it\u2019s nice to see them making an effort.<\/p>\n Wix\u2019s checklist is more extensive than Squarespace\u2019s and it has a very easy integration with Google Search Console which is a useful addition. That being said, both give beginners a checklist to follow to get the most basic SEO tasks done.<\/p>\n So, although Wix gets extra credit here, we feel that both Wix and Squarespace deserve an extra point.<\/p>\n Although not vital for most sites, working with a platform that supports the creation of multilingual sites can be important for some. Not only does it allow you to enter into new markets, but it can also help you drastically increase your search traffic.<\/p>\n Wix is the only website building platform that has full multilingual support. This works via a new app<\/a> called Wix Multilingual<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wix Multilingual allows you to either manually translate your content or use AI to do it for you. It also allows you to adjust the SEO settings for each language, which is an important extra feature.<\/p>\n Squarespace does have the Weglot Multilingual extension, but it only allows you to translate 2000 words in one language pair on the free tier. This is the equivalent of about half of this blog post\u2026<\/p>\n The plans get pretty expensive after that, with sites of over 50.000 words already costing $87 per month!<\/p>\n This is around 10-30 long form blog posts, plus perhaps a few regular pages like your homepage, about page and similar. Small sites may fall under their $17 or $32 per month plans, but even then, we feel it\u2019s pretty expensive compared to paid WordPress or Joomla plugins.<\/p>\n You can make your Squarespace site multilingual manually<\/a>, but this is far from ideal given the amount of work and the fact you can only translate certain parts of the site.<\/p>\n GoDaddy doesn\u2019t have an easy way of creating multilingual sites, but you can technically create multiple sites on multiple (sub-)domains in different languages.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s finish by summarizing our findings.<\/p>\n There is a clear divide between the SEO capabilities of the self-hosted CMS systems (WordPress and Joomla) and the platform-hosted systems (Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy).<\/p>\n Not only are you getting a running start out-of-the-box in terms of speed and functionality, but you\u2019re also free to tinker to your heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n The code is open-source, and you can do what you like with it. Whereas with Wix et al, you\u2019re not going to be able to mess around too much \u2018under the hood\u2019.<\/p>\n Which is why we felt it\u2019s better to subdivide our results into 2 groups<\/strong>:<\/p>\n As we said at the start in our quick answer, WordPress is the overall best CMS for SEO, at least out of the box. But if you\u2019re technically minded you\u2019re going to be able to optimize a Joomla site every bit as well as a WordPress one<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Can you optimize a Wix site to the same level? Perhaps, perhaps not. But either way, if you\u2019re tech-savvy enough to do that, we\u2019d question why you\u2019d want to. You\u2019re ultimately locked into Wix\u2019s underlying code and their server config.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not to put Wix down. While still suffering from a number of issues, we were impressed by how much Wix has matured in the past couple of years<\/strong>. It\u2019s certainly no longer the SEO horror story it once was.<\/p>\n In fact, it\u2019s the clear SEO winner in the \u201cwebsite building platforms\u201d subcategory and also the CMS that has improved most since our last round of testing. So if you don\u2019t want the hassle of managing your own code\/server, and just want a platform where you can quickly launch a site, focus on content, and control most SEO fundamentals, then it could be a solid choice.<\/p>\n Besides, if Wix keeps improving as quickly as they have been to date, we\u2019re sure that you\u2019ll be enjoying new nifty features soon.<\/p>\n Squarespace lags Wix in terms of SEO functionality<\/strong>. But it is what it is, and you\u2019ll certainly be able to optimize a number of important on-page factors.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re on GoDaddy\u2019s Website Builder\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026good luck!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s our overall scores again.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s an overview of the final scores only if you want to share our results:<\/p>\n You can read our full reviews of each CMS system by clicking the links below.<\/p>\n Note: This CMS review has originally been written in 2021 by David McSweeney and has been updated for 2024 by Bram Vergouwen. Bram is a SEO specialist with more than 6 years of experience working with companies across different countries and industries, providing customized SEO solutions and strategies that increase online visibility.<\/em><\/p>\nQuick answers<\/h2>\n
The best CMS for SEO right now<\/h3>\n
The best website-building platform for SEO<\/h3>\n
How we selected the CMS systems to test<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"drupal](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/drupal-google-trends.png\")
<\/p>\nWhy we included GoDaddy\u2019s Website Builder in our testing<\/h3>\n
![\"registrar](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/registrar-market-share.png\")
\nSource<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n\n
How we tested the SEO capabilities of each CMS<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
How fast (or slow) was each CMS?<\/h2>\n
![\"CMS](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/CMS-Systems-Page-Speed.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"minimize](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/minimize-main-thread-work.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"squarespace](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/squarespace-slow-load-times.png\")
<\/p>\nCould the speed issues be resolved?<\/h3>\n
Support for On-Page SEO fundamentals<\/h2>\n
![\"CMS](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/cms-systems-comparison-2024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"CMS](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/cms-systems-on-page-seo-control.png\")
<\/p>\nSEO Titles and Meta Descriptions<\/h3>\n
![\"page](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/page-title-and-meta-description-control.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"yoast](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/yoast-wordpress-meta.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions<\/h4>\n
\n
Page slug \/ URL<\/h3>\n
![\"page](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/page-slug-url-control.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
Learn more about URL slugs\/permalinks<\/h4>\n
\n
Canonical URLs<\/h3>\n
![\"canonical](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/canonical-url-control-1.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"setting](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/setting-a-canonical-URL-in-Wix.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about canonical URLs<\/h4>\n
\n
Index control (robots meta tag)<\/h3>\n
![\"index](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/index-control-1.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
What were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"squarespace](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/squarespace-noindex.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about index control<\/h4>\n
\n
Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3 etc)<\/h3>\n
![\"heading](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/heading-tags-control.png\")
<\/p>\n<h1>Pets<\/h1> (topic of the page)
\n<h2>Goldfish<\/h2> (subtopic)
\n<h3>Caring for your goldfish<\/h3> (subtopic of goldfish)
\n<h4>Clean your fish\u2019s tank regularly<\/h4> (subtopic of caring for your goldfish)
\n<h2>Cats<\/h2> (subtopic)
\n<h3>Caring for your cat<\/h3> (subtopic of cats)<\/code><\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"wix](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/wix-blog-post-headings.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"godaddy](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/godaddy-heading-tags.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about heading tags<\/h4>\n
\n
Structured data (aka schema)<\/h3>\n
![\"structured](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/structured-data-control.png\")
\nStructured data (also known as schema) can help Google understand:<\/p>\n\n
What were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"wix](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/wix-schema.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"squarespace](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/squarespace-schema.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about structured data and rich snippets<\/h4>\n
\n
Image SEO<\/h3>\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/image-SEO-control.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
What were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
Learn more about image SEO<\/h4>\n
\n
HTTPS<\/h3>\n
![\"HTTPS](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/https-1.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about HTTPS<\/h4>\n
\n
Robots.txt file<\/h3>\n
![\"robots.txt](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/robots-txt-control.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
![\"wix](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/wix-robot-txt.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about Robots.txt<\/h4>\n
\n
XML Sitemaps<\/h3>\n
![\"XML](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/XML-sitemaps-control.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat were we looking for?<\/h4>\n
How did the CMS systems perform?<\/h4>\n
Learn more about XML Sitemaps<\/h4>\n
\n
Mobile friendly<\/h3>\n
![\"mobile](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mobile-friendliness.png\")
<\/p>\n301 Redirects<\/h3>\n
![\"301](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/301-redirects-control.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about 301 redirects<\/h4>\n
\n
Extra features and improvements<\/h3>\n
SEO checklist<\/h4>\n
Multilingual support<\/h4>\n
Other notable mentions<\/h4>\n
\n
In summary: Self-hosted platforms still lead the SEO way<\/h2>\n
\n
While WordPress is the overall best CMS for SEO, Wix is the clear winner in the \u201cwebsite building platforms\u201d category<\/h3>\n
![\"CMS](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/CMS-systems-on-page-SEO-control-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"final](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/scores-2024.png\")
<\/p>\n\n