That is the third submit in our collection the place we check the on-page website positioning of the world’s hottest CMS methods.
In elements 1 and a couple of of the collection, we examined Wix and Squarespace. The headlines: Wix presents respectable management of on-page website positioning, Squarespace not a lot.
On this submit, we’re diving into Godaddy’s Web site Builder. After we examined this CMS for the primary time, we had been… properly… just a little underwhelmed.
That’s why we had been notably curious to see if GoDaddy had managed to enhance its website positioning performance over the previous 3 years.
Learn on to find:
- how properly arrange for on-page website positioning GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is out of the field in 2024,
- how one can configure your GoDaddy Web site Builder website to rank larger in Google,
- the technical website positioning points we discovered on the platform
Let’s get began with a abstract.
In Abstract: Is Godaddy’s Web site Builder good for website positioning?
We’re positive GoDaddy. They’re the world’s largest area registrar.
However you may not know — except you noticed the quite a few upsells once you registered your area — that additionally they have a semi-popular CMS you need to use to construct your web site.
Why do we are saying semi-popular? As a result of based on w3techs simply 0.5% of websites run on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder (as of June 2024). Which signifies that WordPress websites (with a utilization share of 43.4%) outnumber GoDaddy websites by 87-1.
However these numbers don’t inform the complete story.
As a result of our guess is that when you think about the variety of spam websites selecting WordPress, the proportion of “actual” companies working on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder might be a lot larger than 0.5%.
The unhealthy information?
These companies are going to be critically hampered by the shortage of management over their web site’s on-page website positioning.
As a result of the underside line is, there’s simply not a lot you are able to do to optimize your GoDaddy website. And sadly, GoDaddy hasn’t made any enhancements to their website positioning performance within the final 3 years which means that website positioning is simply not a precedence for them.
Throw in gradual load occasions and also you’ve obtained a platform that’s undoubtedly going to be holding again your efforts to rank your website larger in Google.
Like footage? Right here’s a abstract…
How we examined the website positioning capabilities of GoDaddy’s Web site Builder
We arrange a small website on a GoDaddy Web site Builder Premium plan.
We selected a preferred theme and loaded the location with demo content material.
The exams included guide assessment, working the location by way of our personal website positioning audit instrument, and testing utilizing third-party instruments corresponding to Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.
GoDaddy Web site Builder website positioning: The great, the unhealthy, and the ugly
Earlier than reviewing GoDaddy’s management of on-page website positioning components, let’s run by way of a few of the website positioning highlights (and lowlights) of the platform.
We’ll begin with the positives.
Good:
Crickets chirp…
Okay, um… it’s straightforward to combine your GoDaddy website with Google Search Console.
Transferring on.
Dangerous: Sluggish load occasions
With Core Net Vitals being a part of Google’s algorithm since 2021, velocity and structure stability have grow to be much more necessary for website positioning.
Our check GoDaddy website had severe points with each.
For instance, this tremendous fundamental weblog submit…
…had a Google PageSpeed Insights rating of simply 41 and a complete blocking time of 7000 ms.
It additionally had unusual points with structure stability (loading then hiding layers), which you’ll be able to see within the timeline under.
The gradual load occasions had been primarily brought on by heavy script utilization.
That being stated, GoDaddy Web site Builder web sites can be optimized when websites are constructed the appropriate manner.
Within the Core Net Vitals Expertise Report, 78.4% of GoDaddy Web site builder web sites obtain a great Core Net Vitals rating on cellular. That is up from simply 40% mid 2021.
So, though out-of-the-box, there are some points, there are clearly steps you may take to enhance the CWV of websites constructed with GoDaddy Web site Builder.
Ugly: There’s simply not a lot you are able to do to optimize your website
Need to edit a web page’s title and meta description? No downside… except you wish to do it for a weblog web page.
A number of the different fundamentals, like optimizing alt tags and fundamental picture optimization are doable too.
Need to get extra superior?
Time to modify to a different CMS.
Along with the shortage of superior on-page website positioning options, we additionally seen that the stuff you can do are typically hidden behind unconvential subject names.
For instance, GoDaddy permits you to set a title and meta description for every web page in your website in the primary editor.
Solely they don’t name it a title. For some purpose, they’ve determined to name it a “headline”.
So why is that this an issue?
Properly, contemplate a non-technical person who’s simply learn an article (like our website positioning audit information) telling them to create an optimized title tag. Isn’t calling the sector “headline” simply inflicting pointless confusion?
Are we nitpicking? Maybe. However this simply appears illogical to us.
On-Web page website positioning Fundamentals: How does GoDaddy’s Web site Builder measure up?
Now let’s flip our consideration to manage of a few of the elementary on-page website positioning components.
Does GoDaddy’s Web site Builder cowl all of them?
Not even shut.
Right here’s our abstract once more.
Observe: having management of an website positioning rating issue isn’t equal to its optimization. website positioning audit instruments like Seobility supply recommendation on learn how to correctly optimize every component and discover errors in optimization which can be holding again your website. See our website positioning audit information for extra info on learn how to absolutely optimize your web site.
website positioning Titles and Meta Descriptions
Management in GoDaddy: partial
A web page’s title continues to be one of the necessary on-page rating components. And a well-written meta description may help you get extra click-throughs (though Google gained’t at all times use it).
On a GoDaddy website, you may set a customized title and meta description for every “web page”.
However if you wish to do the identical for a weblog submit, you’re out of luck. It should mechanically use your weblog submit’s title.
There are two methods you may set the title and outline for a web page.
The primary is in the primary editor, underneath “Settings > Get discovered on Google”.
The second manner is thru the website positioning wizard.
To entry the wizard, click on on “Begin Optimizing” underneath “Settings > Get discovered on Google” on any web page (proven under), or select “website positioning” from the “Advertising” dropdown.
From there, you may select to optimize your homepage, or some other web page in your website.
When you’ve chosen a web page to optimize, GoDaddy will ask you to choose a couple of key phrases….
It’s also possible to add a few of your personal by clicking on “Enter your personal key phrases”..
You’ll then be requested to pick a title in your web page.
Yikes!
Let’s check out that first title (which we suspect many small enterprise homeowners might decide):
Seobility Yoga – Yoga Courses, Yoga Instruction, Yoga, Yoga Courses
Seems to be good proper? As a result of stuffing key phrases into your title and repeating the phrase yoga 5 occasions is an effective way to spice up your search engine rankings.
*checks calendar
Wait, it’s not 1999 anymore?
Sarcasm is hopefully apparent… However simply in case, let’s be crystal clear. This isn’t a great way to jot down your web page titles for website positioning.
In truth, we don’t actually like all of GoDaddy’s instructed titles. However as we’re pressured to pick one earlier than continuing we’ll select the best:
Yoga Courses – Seobility Yoga
It’s not good. However at the least it’s not spammy.
On the following display screen, we are able to add our web page’s meta description.
After which after one other couple of screens the place we are able to select so as to add our key phrases to our web page’s content material and heading, we’ll get to a remaining assessment web page…
…and we’re completed.
We don’t discover this website positioning wizard notably useful. However the truth that the web page title solutions are poor, it’s an extremely gradual manner of updating a few of the most simple website positioning rating components.
Finally although, that’s simply our opinion. And non-technical customers might desire to replace their website this fashion.
So we are able to’t precisely name this a unfavorable.
However what we are able to say is a unfavorable is that GoDaddy doesn’t provide you with any option to set a customized website positioning title and outline in your weblog posts. The title will at all times be the identical as your headline, and there’s nowhere so as to add a meta description.
This has been the case for years now and we’ve no concept why, but it surely’s not good.
Be taught extra about website positioning Titles and Meta Descriptions
Web page slug / URL
Management in GoDaddy: partial
We advocate creating brief, descriptive, 2-3 phrase slugs. These ought to embrace the first key phrase (or phrase) for every web page and use hyphens to separate phrases.
You are able to do it on a GoDaddy website, however once more, it’s fairly unintuitive. There’s no subject for modifying your slug, however GoDaddy will base it in your web page’s title.
And to layer on the confusion, we don’t imply website positioning title (bear in mind, GoDaddy calls that “headline”), we imply the “title” you select once you create a brand new web page:
So within the instance above, we’d get a slug that appears like this:
yourdomain/yoga-tips
When you replace this title, the URL can even replace.
Which is type of high quality we guess. However a subject for slug/URL might need made it just a little easier to know?
As for the weblog, you’ll be caught with a slug primarily based on the title of the weblog submit itself. So if we now have a weblog submit titled:
Yoga Ideas For Newbies: Right here’s How To Get Higher At Yoga FAST
We’ll get a slug that appears like this:
yoga-tips-for-beginners-heres-how-to-get-better-at-yoga-fast
And there’s nothing we are able to do to vary it. Not preferrred.
Observe: one thing we did uncover is that in case you change a printed weblog submit’s title, GoDaddy will preserve the outdated URL. So we suppose you may initially create the weblog submit with a brief, 2-3 phrase keyword-targeted title, then change it to an extended title afterwards in case you needed a workaround.
Be taught extra about URL slugs/permalinks
Canonical URLs
Management in GoDaddy: no
On smaller websites, you in all probability gained’t want to fret about this.
However you probably have a collection of comparable pages in your website — i.e. focusing on the identical key phrases, or with very small variations in content material — there could also be occasions once you’ll wish to set a canonical (grasp) URL.
This helps to keep away from duplicate content material points.
There’s definitely no apparent option to set canonical URLs in GoDaddy’s Web site Builder. So potential fiddly workarounds excepted, we’re going to say that this isn’t one thing you may management on a GoDaddy website.
Be taught extra about canonical URLs
Index management (robots meta tag)
Management in GoDaddy: no
The robots meta tag instructs Google to both index (1), or to not index (2) a web page:
- – index this web page please Google
- – ignore this web page please Google (however observe the hyperlinks on it)
You don’t really want the primary one as (assuming your web page meets their high quality requirements) indexing is Google’s default motion. Nevertheless it doesn’t do any hurt to have it in place.
We couldn’t see any easy option to noindex a person web page on a GoDaddy website.
Be taught extra about index management
Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3 and many others)
Management in GoDaddy: no
Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, and many others) assist Google perceive the construction, and subject(s) of your web page.
They need to be correctly nested.
For instance, an h1 tag would typically be the primary subject (stage 1), an h2 may very well be a subtopic (stage 2), and an h3 may very well be a sub-sub subject (stage 3), and many others:
(subject of the web page)
Goldfish
(subtopic)
Caring in your goldfish
(subtopic of goldfish)
Clear your fish’s tank recurrently
(subtopic of caring in your goldfish)
Cats
(subtopic)
Caring in your cat
(subtopic of cats)
GoDaddy’s Web site Builder fails miserably right here. You’ve obtained just about zero management over headings.
At first look, we thought maybe they had been doing their funky naming conference trick once more and calling heading tags “Kinds” or changing them to sizes like “XL” and “XXS”. However we had been incorrect.
Seems the dropdowns within the picture above are actually for controlling the model and dimension of the heading. There’s no option to change the precise heading tag itself.
So that you’re caught with no matter GoDaddy feels is the most effective match for a specific heading tag. Which wouldn’t be fairly a lot of a difficulty in the event that they had been selecting the best ones…
…however (at the least in our exams) they’re not.
Within the instance above, we’ve skipped straight from H2 to H4.
How about on a weblog web page?
Properly, all you are able to do is choose “T” within the textual content toolbar.
Which turns the highlighted textual content into an H4. Need a subheading? Robust, you’re getting one other H4.
(H4 wasn’t even the appropriate tag right here, it ought to have been an H2)
So there’s simply no option to create a correctly structured web page.
Poor.
Be taught extra about heading tags
Schema Markup
Management in GoDaddy: no
Schema markup is a sort of structured information that may assist Google perceive:
- the kind of content material on a web page (i.e. recipe, assessment, product, article),
- the entity behind the web site (i.e. group),
- and will also be used to indicate further search options (wealthy snippets)
When you’re not accustomed to structured information and its influence on website positioning, we advocate studying our wealthy snippets information.
There’s no easy manner so as to add schema markup to a web page on GoDaddy.
Be taught extra about structured information and wealthy snippets
Picture website positioning
Management in GoDaddy: sure
The three most necessary components of picture website positioning are:
- Alt textual content (description of the picture for display screen readers and serps)
- File dimension (smaller = sooner = higher)
- File title (we advocate utilizing descriptive file names)
GoDaddy’s Web site Builder performs fairly properly right here.
It’s straightforward so as to add alt textual content…
And once you add a picture GoDaddy will create (and serve) a WebP model – a light-weight picture format that’s really useful by Google.
They’ll change the filename of the webp (we’d quite they stored it the identical), however general we’re fairly proud of how GoDaddy handles picture website positioning.
Be taught extra about picture website positioning
HTTPS
Do GoDaddy websites run over HTTPS? sure
HTTPS has been a confirmed Google rating sign since 2014.
And at the moment there’s actually no excuse for any website to nonetheless be working over HTTP. However any website positioning advantages, it’s unsecure.
So we’re happy to say that each GoDaddy website (whether or not on a customized area or not) runs on HTTPS.
Be taught extra about HTTPS
Robots.txt file
Management in GoDaddy: no
A robots.txt file lets you cease search engine bots from accessing sure areas of your website.
For instance, you might need a bit with user-generated content material that you just don’t need crawled or listed by Google.
Sadly, whereas GoDaddy will create a default robots.txt file in your website, there’s presently no option to edit it.
Be taught extra about Robots.txt
XML Sitemaps
Generated by GoDaddy: sure
An XML sitemap helps Google discover (and index) all of the pages in your website.
GoDaddy mechanically units up and maintains an XML sitemap in your website (pages, weblog posts, and many others), nonetheless, there is no such thing as a option to edit it.
Be taught extra about XML Sitemaps
Are GoDaddy websites mobile-friendly?
One phrase reply: sure
When designing your website on GoDaddy, there’s a great likelihood you’ll be specializing in the way it seems on desktop.
However cellular site visitors overtook desktop site visitors in 2017. And Google now prioritizes the cellular model of your website for crawling and indexing.
The excellent news is that GoDaddy websites are absolutely responsive, and (velocity points however) work properly on cellular.
Simply make sure that to preview how your website seems on each desktop and cellular. And bear in mind it’s the cellular model of your website that Google will index and rank. So you probably have a characteristic that shows on desktop however not cellular, then Google doubtless gained’t take it under consideration for rankings.
GoDaddy gives you a preview of how your website seems on cellular.
However we’d nonetheless advocate testing by yourself system after going dwell.
In conclusion: GoDaddy Web site Builder’s website positioning is critically missing
Our mom advised us that if we don’t have something constructive to say, then don’t say something.
But when we caught by that rule… properly, you’d be a clean web page right here.
As a result of it’s fairly onerous to conclude something apart from GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is poor for website positioning.
When you’re on the platform, you’re going to be hampered by the shortage of choices for optimizing your website/content material. And sadly, this hasn’t modified in years, so we don’t have a lot confidence that GoDaddy will enhance their website positioning performance anytime quickly.
However with that being stated:
When you presently have a GoDaddy website and don’t wish to change to a extra superior CMS — an motion we really discovered GoDaddy help engineers recommending in lots of their very own assist threads! — our recommendation can be to:
- run a full website positioning audit (you may observe this information),
- allocate time to fixing points and optimizing your website (the place doable),
- deal with creating high-quality content material that helps your customers and absolutely solutions their search queries,
- construct your website’s authority by incomes top quality backlinks (try our really useful hyperlink constructing techniques right here)
Observe: This CMS assessment has initially been written in 2021 by David McSweeney and has been up to date for 2024 by Bram Vergouwen. Bram is a website positioning specialist with greater than 6 years of expertise working with firms throughout completely different international locations and industries, offering custom-made website positioning options and methods that improve on-line visibility.
Within the different elements of this collection, we reviewed the on-page website positioning of Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Joomla. And we’ve in contrast the website positioning execs and cons of every CMS in a remaining roundup submit, the place we additionally revealed the most effective CMS for website positioning.
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