Site Speed Matters – So how do you test it?

Posted on August 10, 2015 at 7:30 am.

Written by Matt

Site speed is important. Your website speed can influence site traffic and more importantly – conversions. If your site takes 5-10 seconds to load on a desktop with a high speed internet connection, it’s going to take even longer to load on a mobile network. This is not a good user experience and can cause visitors (potential customers) to move along.

There are many factors affecting your site speed… registrar, host, site platform, site code optimization, image size, external requests, the list goes on… However, there are tools available to get quick answers, as well as very detailed answers.

Our favorite tools are:

Quick and Simple – Pingdom Speed Test
Insightful (Weird how it’s in the name…) – Google Developers PageSpeed Insights
Robust and Detailed – WebPageTest.org

All of these tools have various scores, data points, pros, and cons. One test is not going to give you a definitive answer; multiple tests will be more telling as to how your site is actually performing. Webpagetest.org has more functionality and adjustable settings than the rest. Pingdom and Google will give you grades and scores; some of these data points are important, some are not.

Pingdom Website Speed Test

Pingdom has four data points that I find most important:

“Your website is (faster/slower) than (%) of all tested websites.”
Page Size.
First Byte.

The “website is faster/slower than” metric is an easy way for you to gauge your site speed against others. It is also the perfect example of why multiple tests are important. This calculation uses “Load Time”, which is influenced by “Page Size”, host speed, server connection speed, and code quality. Mockingbird pages, for example, average around 0.8-1.4 seconds to fully load, but on a single test in Pingdom I received a 2.83 second “Load Time”. Multiple tests with other testing services are your friend.

Page Size is important, because it influences your load time and can be optimized. Is your page over 2 MB? If you don’t have many images or any videos – I would find this alarming. Are your images poorly optimized for web? Is your site code overly bulky? Are you loading too many large external resources? All of these are fixable by web designers and developers. Poorly optimized images are the most common increase in page size and has the easiest fix. “Save for web” in Adobe Photoshop or other image editing programs is a simple step to take when creating images for a website.

First Byte is something clearly displayed in the WebPageTest.org results – but is not clear in the Pingdom results. Your First Byte time is the time it takes to DNS Lookup, Connect, and Load the initial HTML file. With Pingdom this can be seen as the time it takes to load the initial page file within the Waterfall graph.

Other Scores

Load Time can be useful especially for smaller sites – because this time should be low for small sites. There’s probably no videos, as many external resources, or as many images as larger sites. But for large sites this time can be hard to control. I prefer to stay within 0.5-3 seconds, but under 5 is ok. Performance Grade – this metric has some useful data for web developers. However, for a small business who is actively marketing – this score is useless. Just having advertising, analytics, and call tracking is going to bring this score way down, because the amount of externally loaded resources that are necessary.

Let me give you some “Pingdom” Load Time examples from our clients.

Client Who Moved From Slow Host to Our Favorite – WPengine:

Load Time: Old Host = 8-10 seconds | WPengine = 0.7-3 seconds (Wow!)
Page Size: 2.9MB

Huge Bulky Client Website on WPengine:

Load Time: 1-3 Seconds (This is amazing for a bulky, older, big box theme, WordPres site)
Page Size: 1.5MB

There’s always room for website improvement. But, anyone can use these tools to find glaring, yet fixable problems.

As you can see, a fast host like WPengine can really make a huge difference. For reference – big sites like newspapers or syndicated blogs will have load times of up to 12 seconds! This is because of their large amounts of content and advertising. But their “Start Render Time” is still going to be 0.5-2 seconds, allowing users to view content quickly. This “Start Render Time” time may be influencing search results.

WebPageTest.org – Test a website’s performance

This is truly an amazing tool for developers. I won’t go into all the details here, because it’s not that useful for the average user. But there are a few features and data points I highly recommend using.

Connection (Can test your speed over Cable, DSL, 3G, 2G, etc…)
Number of Tests to Run (Here is where we weed out the outliers with up to 9 tests)
First View and Repeat View (Repeat View will allow you to test your caching by comparing speeds to First View)
“Start Render” data point (After you run a test – this will be one of the first items you see – it’s important for larger sites and ensures your visitors are seeing content quickly)

Google Page Speed Insights

This tool from Google gives you a Mobile Speed Score, Mobile User Experience Score, and a Desktop Speed Score out of 100. Your Mobile User Experience should be 100/100 or very close to it – to ensure a strong mobile user experience. The rest of the optimization suggestions contribute to your score, which I have mixed feelings about.

You might ask – why not just go for a 100/100 scores on the Google PageSpeed Insights? I could continue this rant and explain the technicalities of those scores. But to keep it simple, it’s not worth it, because it would require a huge web development budget with no tangible return on the investment. Check out this case study on earning a 100/100 score – Smashing Magazine Performance Case Study.

Go Test Your Site!

I suggest using a combination of the tools discussed above to assess your site. If your page speed and load times are super slow – you might consider a website redesign or host change. You might even discover that you have giant images over 1MB each! That’s an easy fix.

FindLaw Websites Crushed by Panda 4

Posted on May 23, 2014 at 5:31 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

On Tuesday, I posted about Google’s roll-out of Panda 4 – an algorithm update targeting spammy, thin, duplicative content and postulated that this was going to really shake up the legal industry. It turns out, that was an understatement. Early results are showing that this algo update has had the largest ever impact across the legal industry.

The algo changes start with my friends in Eagen, Minnesota at FindLaw (and unfortunately, probably many of their website clients).

FindLaw.com Decimated by Panda 4

I was curious to see what happened to FindLaw’s traffic after Panada 4 rolled out, as the legal SEO industry has been vocally critical of Google for seeming to turn a blind eye to FindLaw tactics that flagrantly flaunt search engine best practices. To date, none of the algo updates or Penguin penalties seem to have had a massive or persistent impact on either the FindLaw site or their law firm clients’ websites. The early data suggests that has changed drastically with Panda 4:

Check out the massive drop in the past few days – FindLaw plummeting to traffic levels lower than they’ve seen in many years. Why did this happen? Attorney, Damon Chetson described it best (and foreshadowed this week’s impact of Panda) in a post from January: FindLaw Getting Penalized for SEO Abuse.

“FindLaw was “good” at creating a lot of content, most of it junk, that it could repackage and sell across websites and markets.”

This type of pervasive, thin, low quality content across a network of sites is exactly what the Panda algo updated was designed to detect and push users away from.

What Happened to Avvo?

After I saw this massive hit FindLaw’s traffic, my next stop was to check out Avvo. (Full disclosure – I’m still a shareholder in Avvo, so I’m hardly writing from a dis-interested perspective here.) Turns out Avvo didn’t get hit. At all. The Alexa graph below shows business as usual for Avvo.

In fact, legal marketer Shelly Fagin is reporting on some impressive gains for Avvo.

I’m seeing Panda 4.0 bumped down lots of lawyers positions for Avvo which now has a top SERP in most all our major search terms.

And the data I’m tracking suggests Shelly is entirely accurate. Below you’ll see a sampling of ranking data on 1,500 different highly competitive head terms (like “Seattle Divorce Lawyer”) and the changes in incidence in Top 3 ranking for both FindLaw and Avvo. While FindLaw’s appearance in the top 3 results has dropped by 44%, Avvo exploded by 210% and they are now dominating FindLaw on these highly converting (i.e. prospects making phone calls to lawyers) terms.

These changes are a big deal for the legal industry as a whole. In 2006, I was part of a small group of people trying to use the web to bring consumers closer to the legal profession. Just eight years later – it looks like Avvo not only joined the big leagues, but is now the only major player left standing – martindale.com and lawyers.com have long been relegated to traffic irrelevance and now with Panda 4, FindLaw has joined them.

What to Expect If You are Advertising on Avvo or FindLaw

If the data above is indicative of FindLaw and Avvo’s performance overall, advertisers are going to start seeing a huge change in return on investment for their marketing spend. As both Avvo and FindLaw essentially monetize their SEO performance as ads – I’d predict inbound traffic and call volume from FindLaw is going to crater. And if the data is correct (and the trend holds) I’d anticipate Avvo advertising rates to increase in about 3 months.

FindLaw Lawyer Websites Hit by Panda 4

My bigger concern is not really with the FindLaw domain overall, but their law firm clients who may have been negatively impacted by the tactics employed by their provider. Did FindLaw website clients get hit too? This is a little harder to diagnose, as most attorney sites are far too small to register on traffic reporting sites like Alexa. BUT . . . anecdotally the answer seems to be yes. Here are two data points:

1. FindLaw’s Pre-SEO’d Websites Hit

The day before the announcement of Panda 4, I wrote a post about FindLaw’s pre-built, pre-SEO’d sites . . . essentially websites being sold to Lawyers that were already ranking for highly competitive terms. Seems like many FindLaw lawyer websites have disappeared entirely. The examples I used – longislanddwilawyer.org, and lasvegas-duilawyer.com – which ranked on the first page for their respective key terms “geo _ dwi/dui lawyer” at the beginning of the week are no longer to be found in the search results. Hand checking in on many other FindLaw sites shows the have disappeared too. In a post today, A to Z Lawyer Marketing reports:

Well google just unveiled Panda 4.0 and it took FindLaw’s entire low quality network with it. Hundreds of FindLaw sites have vanished from the SERP.

2. Forum Comments

Forum comments on the FindLaw’s Pre-SEO’d Websites Post anecdotally corroborate the data above:

If you suspect your FindLaw website has been hit by Panda . . . despair. But just for a little while. Then think about what makes Panda tick – that thin, recycled, low quality content. Getting out of a Panda penalty is hard (and expensive) but is achievable. Check the stipulations of your FindLaw contract and thank your lucky stars this isn’t a Penguin issue where recovery is a much fuzzier, much harder, much more expensive. If you are considering finding a new website or SEO provider, check out the FindLaw Jailbreak Guide.

FindLaw Selling Pre-SEO’d Websites

Posted on May 20, 2014 at 6:34 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

Want to rank #1 for a highly competitive search term immediately? FindLaw has your answer.

FindLaw is now offering pre-built Websites – essentially high ranking law firm websites with no owner – being sold to the highest bidder. And by “high ranking” I mean high ranking in the search engines.

Here’s excerpts from a FindLaw email forwarded to me by a lawyer wondering how much he should pony up for a site that was already a ranking winner:

look at this link and let me know what you think once you open the first organic (under top PPC adds). This is just a sample of our pre-built DUI Sites that we recently released. We only sell 2 state wide for every state. Why not consider being # 1 organically. . .”

What the what?

What is a pre SEO’d Website?

Now its unclear from the email above exactly what “pre-built” websites actually means – but the explicit message here is that a firm can purchase a website from FindLaw that already ranks. And ranks #1 for very competitive terms. The sales pitch is very compelling – we already rank #1 . . . see right here?

And lawyers bit. Here’s one of those pre-built, pre-SEO’d websites live and kicking and rented by attorney Erik Zentz. Yes – just <insert handsome attorney picture here>. DUI in Vegas – I wonder how deep Erik’s pockets are?

And this approach seems to be working well for FindLaw and their clients. Here’s Zentz winning the competitive query “Las Vegas DUI Lawyer”. (And I can’t tell you the rash it gives me that a FindLaw site is outranking Avvo’s results – which come in at #2.)

I wanted to know exactly what a pre-built website was, so I checked out lasvegas-duilawyer.com on the wayback machine. Turns out, just last year there was an entirely different law firm on that domain: Kajioka and Bloomfield.

So what happened to Kajioka and when? Here’s the site on the wayback machine from January of this year – notice the firm name and contact information have been stripped. I can’t possibly imagine a worse user experience for someone in desperate need of a lawyer stumbling across a placeholder website ranking #1 in a highly targeted search result.

And now Eric Zentz owns rents the domain that Kajioka and Bloomfield presumably paid to have FindLaw build and optimize for them – including all of the legacy blog content and . . . links. Yup – despite the fact that Zentz started on the domain just this year, “his” blog posts stretch back well into the first quarter of last year and have the exact same content from the Kajioka era. Explains how he’s been able to rank #1 for a super competitive term in less than 3 months. And not to miss a black hat beat, FindLaw made sure to establish authorship for Eric . . . for pre-existing blog posts written long before he was their client. Note the date below . . .

I’ll leave you lawyers and bar reps to chime in on the ethics of this.

So pre-built actually means “recycled” or “rented” or “sold to the highest bidder” or “author spam” or perhaps all of the above.

What absolutely floors me is that Koijaka and Bloomfield have kept their website with FindLaw – although they don’t appear anywhere in search results (at least for me) for that coveted term – “las vegas dui lawyer”.

I wonder who is paying more to the piper?

More Examples

Is Zentz an isolated incidence? Not so fast – through a little backlink analysis I stumbled into a slew of sites – ChicagoLegalAuthority.com, NewYorkLegalAuthority.com etc, PhiladelphiaLegalAuthority.com etc. The whois record for these domains comes up not as FindLaw, but rather as DNStination Inc. in San Francisco, which is, according to Domain Name Strategy, “a profile often used by corporate registrar MarkMonitor to ‘mask’ domain ownership on behalf of their clients.” But the anchor text heavy links on these sites point almost exclusively to lawyer websites that are — you guessed it — FindLaw clients. Of the links on Chicago Legal Authority’s Featured Personal Injury Attorneys (below), seven out of nine of them were to law firms paying FindLaw for their websites – and look at that anchor text whoooo!

And – to close the loop – the New York Legal Authority site included an anchor text heavy link to LongIslandDwILawyer.org – which, although registered to Domains by Proxy (hidden), is built on the same exact template as our original example: Zentz.

Another ownerless site – the phone number I called on the contact page of these ownerless sites went to a nondescript voicemail – no name, no law firm name, nothing – how is that for quality results? BUT – someone is still publishing content on the domain – at least 5 blog posts so far this month.

. . . . and yup, you guessed it . . . the Long Island DWI site returns on page one of Google search results for that money term . . . .”long island DWI Lawyer.”

*sigh*

So if you live in Long Island and practice DWI, give your FindLaw rep a call . . .

WordPress Hacked: A case for a Managed WordPress Host

Posted on April 11, 2014 at 5:12 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

We push WordPress as the only acceptable platform for legal websites. There is a downside: WordPress’s ease of use has led to widespread adoption. And with popularity comes hacking. WordPress is notorious as a target for hacks. A hacked WordPress site is quickly rendered almost invisible (with the exception of highly branded queries) to search engines as they proactively steer users away from a sites that are out of the site owner’s control.

Here’s an example for the branded query “sostrin law office”:

“This site may be hacked.”

This warning is the kiss of SEO death for a site. In fact, searches for “criminal defense los angeles” didn’t return this site within the first 100 results, even after I had visited it. Its a good looking site, with good content but I suspect is utterly invisible to search traffic.

We’ve had one client who came to us with a hacked WordPress site – their search traffic had essentially flatlined, the phone stopped ringing and their PPC spend had exploded by 300% as even branded search queries weren’t returning their site, so existing customers were clicking on their PPC campaign just to get the phone number. Disaster. For this firm, we were utterly unable remove the malicious code after three different attempts and were forced to rebuild their site entirely from scratch.

The Answer: Managed WordPress Hosting

There are a few hosting companies that have sprung up to help site owners minimize the hacking risks of using WordPress – this is called Managed WordPress Hosting. In short – this is the process of a)automating frequent backups b)automating updates to the most current WordPress version and c)eliminating WordPress plug-ins that are vulnerable to hacks. We use WP Engine and they also happen to offer stupendous customer service. While more mainstream hosting providers have started offering Managed WordPress hosting, I’d strongly recommend working with a company that focuses exclusively on the platform – Pressable (formerly ZippyKids) also has a strong reputation.

Managed WordPress is More Expensive

With basic plans coming in around $30 a month (at least 300% more than standard mass hosting solutions), Managed WordPress hosting is more expensive. But this is one situation where you get what you pay for – I’m pretty sure Sostrin Law Offices would be happy to increase their hosting budget right now.

More Horrific Attorney Marketing

Posted on February 12, 2014 at 4:24 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

The online marketing industry continues working hard earning its scummy reputation among lawyers . . .

The example below is so outrageous that it looks like a parody. But its not. It’s real attorney advertising and someone is paying for it. (I know because I called and spoke to the attorney behind the site.) This started with a friend of mine in the SEO industry – Mike Blumenthal – who forwarded me an email with the subject line: gotta love the chutzpa.

Fake Third Party Endorsements

Attached was a screenshot of a footer for what looked like a law firm website, with a tiny blue on blue disclaimer in broken English:

The logos above are sample only, we are not associated with these vendors.

Hmmmm . . . the logos include the Better Business Bureau, the California Association for Justice, The Beverly Hills Bar Association and of course, my beloved Avvo. We know that third party endorsements go a long way to allay concerns of prospective clients of law firms, but this goes well beyond misleading.

Note that the site looks like a law firm website, yet there is absolutely no personal information about an attorney or even a law firm name. The on-page optimization is horrendous – there are 13 instances of the phrase, “Los Angeles DUI”, keyword stuffed meta tags and of course, the exact match domain.

Fake Client Testimonials

Even the faux testimonials are keyword stuffed with SEO optimized internal links. And try reading the text here.

False Testimonials

If you want a chuckle, read all of the “testimonials“; here’s a favorite excerpt:

“DUI attorney Los Angeles is the best law firm in Los Angeles to handle the drunk driving cases in favor of their clients.”

Fake Social Media Widgets

My favorite touch on the site is the fake Facebook like counter which suggests there are a whopping 5,100 people who have liked this non-firm on Facebook. This one had to take some time:

Fortunately, the footer also contained a link to the website developer. Let’s see what happens here:

Just about what I’d expect. So I gave Ace a call to see if they offered online advertising. The guy who answered the phone assured me that he could get me ranking really high on the Internets.

To Be Fair . . . .

My final step was to call the number on the DUI site itself . . . which was answered promptly and professionally (some of you could learn a lesson here) by an attorney. I forced some awkward conversation by asking for the name of his firm and his name (and vetted him on Avvo to see if he was, in fact really an attorney. The guy was helpful (assuming I had really just gotten out of jail on a DUI), compassionate and professional.

For all I know he has no idea that some shoddy marketing firm is being so misleading on his behalf. Caveat emptor lawyers, caveat emptor.

Update: Mike Blumenthal digs deep into how this site surfacing is a failure of Google’s Hummingbird.

Avoid “1&1 My Website” for your law firm’s website

Posted on January 2, 2014 at 8:15 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

Generally, I encourage lawyers to use any cost effective means necessary to get a website up and running – but with 1 & 1 My Website, I’m wrong.

Here’s the backstory: I just received a cold call from 1&1 My Website to our new office number, which was surprising as I haven’t published it anywhere. Given the business I’m in, and the fact that I’ve had a few inquiries from lawyers about their service, I decided to play along and learn a little more. While I didn’t record the conversation, here is my best recreation of some of the conversation that ensued.

The initial call was from a woman who asked for the business owner and started telling me some alarming things about my website.

“When you look your business up online, you have no credibility.”
“I can’t imagine that is the case, I have a very solid reputation . . . ”
“Your business is not searchable through Google.”
“I’m looking your business up and its showing that you don’t have any credibility.”
“Well what are you looking it up with?”
“Your competitors are beating you online.”
“Which competitors?”
“Your competitors in Washington state.”
“But I don’t have any competitors in Washington state.”
“Your business doesn’t have any credibility.”

This went round and round for a few minutes until it became clear that a)she knew nothing and b)her primary objective was to get me on a shared screen via join.me to go through a demo. (She also thought my name was Bob – which was amusing.) I played along and was introduced to a closer named Bill (I’ve changed his name for his own protection – you’ll see why later) whose first questions were:

“Do you already have a website?”
“Yes”
“What is your domain?”

Now presumably, the first lady was actually looking at my site when she was so concerned about my credibility, but in hindsight – we never actually talked about the actual domain at all. Now that we were sharing his screen, Bill proceeded to look up my site and show me the source code on the homepage.

“See . . . the site has no meta tags or keywords, so the only way people can find you is by your business name.”
“Well, that is very concerning.”

Now remember, he’s looking at my site, where the primary nav includes the words “Advanced SEO” – somehow this never registers. He then used an online tool to look up my phone number that returned a zero result.

“See here . . . I can tell by your phone number that you don’t have any website traffic.”
“But I thought I was doing well with search engines.”
“But you don’t have any meta tags or keywords.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The way search engines work is that they look for keywords on your website and if they aren’t there, you won’t show up.”

We then moved to the solution part of the sale . . .

“You can keep your website and we’ll add all of the meta tags and keywords for you for free.”
“Well how many keywords can I get?”
“Unlimited.”
“And what about those meta tags – I don’t really understand that.”
“It’s unlimited, we’ll put in whatever your business does so the search engines can find you.”

I thought I’d move to some more pointed questions:

“But I thought links were the primary thing that search engines used to drive rankings.”
“Oh you can put as many links on your site as you want – for free.”
“No I mean links from other websites.”
“We do that too.”
“Well how many links do I get?”
“Unlimited.”
“How does that work?”
“We have a tool that creates them.”

“You said I can just copy my website to a new domain – www.atticusmarketing.net. Is that going to help with SEO?”
“Yup – and you also get up to 1,000 subdomains.”
“So if I just copy my website on those subdomains, would that help with SEO?”
“Absolutely”

At this point, I should note that this is neither of the two call reps fault. They are stuck in a call center (the background noise sounded like a frat party after a college football win). They have miserable jobs getting rejected by cranky small business owners on a regular basis. They have clearly been trained in the most effective script that closes the most businesses, instead of fundamental SEO concepts.

If you don’t understand why their answers above were so horrific – just take my word for it and stay away.

These sales tactics are unfortunately common in the website/SEO sales process – alarmist calls, unsubstantiated claims, technical jargon and automated, low cost solutions. Its why uninformed attorneys are taken advantage of on a regular basis when buying websites or SEO services. I wrote a quick self-evaluation a few months ago to answer the question: Are You Qualified to Hire an SEO?”

But it gets worse.

After we ended the call (I didn’t sign up btw – despite Bill’s mention of their Superbowl ad, which, for some reason he thought would get me to close) Bill kept his screen sharing opened to his call management software – Connect First. So I was able to investigate where 1&1 harvested my unpublished phone number from – apparently a contact generation company called CostalCom Closers.

I was also able to watch as Bill walked another lead – a contractor across the country – from the cold call script . . .

. . . all the way through the purchase process . . .

. . . to the entry of the company’s credit card number. (Let’s ignore for now, the ironic disclaimer, “1&1 is committed to keeping your payment details secure.”)

If you are uninformed enough to fall for 1 & 1’s sales message know this: they give you just enough functionality to entirely screw up your online marketing efforts. The service was $14.95 a month – clearly you get what you pay for. Attorney websites for lawyers don’t need to be expensive, but they need to get traffic and make your phone ring. 1&1 is NOT the solution.

UPDATE: Through some backdoor channels I heard from Jeff, 1&1’s Director of Telesales. While we only traded voicemails, I believe he was genuinely trying to get in touch with me. From one of his VM’s: “assure you that this is not our typical business practice.”

Escape FindLaw

Posted on November 7, 2013 at 4:07 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

Considering leaving FindLaw for an effective SEO provider? Check the fine print in your contract to see just how difficult they’ve made it for you.

Domain Ownership

If you relied on Findlaw to register your domain, most likely they still actually own it. This means that your investment in SEO has been developing their business, not yours. This is the real estate equivalent of building a house on land you don’t own. Anticipate your “house” being sold to a competitor once you move out.

Content

All that beautiful (and expensive) content on your site? If you didn’t write it, its highly unlikely you own it. And if you are trying to escape, you’re going to have to leave it behind or cough up a hefty fee to buy your content back from them. If your content’s byline looks like the expert below, its probably not YOUR content.

FindLaw Contract

That long term contract you signed with FindLaw sentenced your firm to years of retainer fees. Its hard to escape, no matter how badly Penguin and Panda Google penalties may have decimated your website. Hint: the louder you complain (not to them, but in public) the more amenable they are to an early release.

Data

Don’t let FindLaw hold your Google Analytics data hostage as well. This is your information, not theirs, and something that shouldn’t be left behind. Insist on administrative access in Google Analytics – which enables your to add (and later delete) users. Failing to remove their access to Google Analytics after you’ve escaped means they can still review your data at will.

How to Check if You Own Your Domain

Posted on November 7, 2013 at 3:35 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

Think your website is yours? Think again. If you weren’t the one to register it, you are just renting space on someone else’s domain. And if you are paying for SEO services to build “your” website – you are really just building their business, not yours. This is the real estate equivalent of paying for a kitchen remodel on your rental apartment. And expect your landlord to up your rent.

Use WHOis.net to look up who controls your websites domain. Simply type your domain into the search box on WHOis and see what the results are. Here’s an example of a California law firm, whose blog domain is actually owned by Findlaw.

You can see in the WHOis results – the domain is actually owned by West Group (Findlaw) out of Eagan Minnesota . . .

WordPress vs. Drupal vs. Joomla

Posted on October 7, 2013 at 8:04 pm.

Written by Conrad Saam

I recently had one of my clients ask me for some guidance in migrating a massive website (with pages numbering in the tens of thousands) from their hand coded bespoke platform to a professional CMS. Josh Farkas, from Cubicle Ninjas, is my go to person for any and all advanced, highly technical or customization issues. To help the client weed through CMS options, Cubicle Ninjas put together the following documentation outlining the differences across the three primary platforms (WordPress, Drupal & Joomla).

Cubicle Ninjas is pleased to help make the decision-making process easier by offering researched benefits and perceived weaknesses of the top three content management system (CMS) platforms. It is our mandate to present only facts about Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla to help enable you to make the most educated and informed decision about your content management system.

“Conventional wisdom has it that WordPress is the fast and easy way to go, while Drupal works best for large, complex, enterprise-class websites. Joomla fits somewhere in the middle — it has some of the power of Drupal but with greater ease of use. That doesn’t tell the whole story, however. All three CMSs have evolved beyond their roots: Drupal is getting easier, WordPress more sophisticated and Joomla offers both a CMS and a related Web development platform on which it can run.”

(Computerworld, “Choosing an open-source CMS, part I: Why we Use Drupal”, by Robert L. Mitchell, Feb.13, 2013)

After reading the above article excerpt, deciding which content management system (CMS) to power your new website is probably more puzzling than ever. Yet selecting the most appropriate CMS to create, maintain, and sustain your website may be the most critically important decision made regarding the creation of a site. For instance, if your short-term goals are perfectly aligned with one CMS, but that same platform is seemingly unable to meet your future requirements, you’re considering the wrong CMS.

This is why there are two key factors to consider when searching for the perfect platform for your needs.

First, when selecting a CMS, it’s imperative to thoroughly understand what strengths and weakness each platform brings to the table today, as well as their planned, future technological trajectories.
Secondly, to make the right decision relies a great deal on you having a thorough understanding of the scope, complexity, depth, features, and functionalities of your site, both in the short- and long-term. Once you’ve done your due diligence researching CMSs and have cemented your website’s intentions, requirements, and goals, the confusion surrounding the CMS decision will begin to dissipate and the choice will become much more clear.

The Benefits & Perceived Weaknesses of Drupal, WordPress & Joomla

When combined, Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla content management systems (CMS) control approximately 75% of the total CMS market share. These three CMS giants are all open source systems, meaning they are free of charge and downloadable from the Internet. In addition all are built on PHP + MySQL and manage content with databases.

Their differences, however, far outweigh their abovementioned similarities. Though there are obviously many shared attributes amongst two out of the three CMSs, each one has its unique strengths and weaknesses. The synopses that follow are intended to be informative overviews of Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla. Prior to selecting a CMS, Cubicle Ninjas strongly recommends further investigation into the one or two that pique your interest and appear to meet your website’s requirements both today and far into the future.

DRUPAL

Benefits: Often referred to as the ‘granddaddy’ of CMSs for its powerful backend that can support hundreds of thousands of pages and millions of users a month, Drupal has also been around the longest having been first released in 2001. With its unparalleled power, it can support the creation of multiple content types, each with hundreds of fields, and it presents unlimited ways to capture, organize, and present data for a wide range of applications. With its flexibility, power, and scalability Drupal is ideal for developing complex, big-budget, large-scale websites. In addition to being the most secure CMS on the market today, experiencing the least number of exploits and hacks, this CMS also provides granular control over who can access and edit every aspect of the site. One of the newer features of this CMS is that it automatically creates responsive sites (Drupal 7). Drupal administrators and users are also fortunate to have strong, well-maintained support communities and forums for problem-shooting and solving issues.

One of the most flexible and powerful CMSs available for developing complex, big-budget, large-scale projects.
Supports creation of multiple content types, each with hundreds of fields.
Powerful backend that can support hundreds of thousands of pages and millions of users a month.
Automatically creates responsive sites (Drupal 7).
Most secure and experiences the least number of exploits and hacks.
Granular control over who can access and edit every aspect of the site.
Technical excellence.
Scales effortlessly and is stable.
Unlimited ways to capture, organize, and present data for a wide range of applications.
Strong well maintained support communities and forums.

Perceived Weaknesses: With all Drupal has to offer it may come as a surprise to learn it is only used by 5.7% of all websites created using content management systems. Why such a low percentage when the benefits are so many? Because Drupal is also, without contention, the most difficult and technical of the three CMSs.

More often than not, creating and launching a website with Drupal requires IT professionals as this program lacks editor tools such as WYSIWYG and uses code instead. With its foundation in code, Drupal is difficult to use for those without technological backgrounds or knowledge and the learning curve is so steep it may as well be vertical. Posting requires setting options for URL Alias, Menus, Revision Logs, Comments, and Author Meta data, most of which are completely foreign to the average layman. In addition, Drupal lacks themes that mean great designers are necessary to make the site visually captivating. It also has the smallest number of plugins, modules, and extensions. Drupal also lacks strong support communities and forums, making developers rely on the company’s main documentation. All of these factors make Drupal the most costly to develop and maintain.

Steep learning curve.
Requires code (lacks editor tools such as WYSIWG)
Difficult to use for those without technical backgrounds/knowledge.
Developers forced to create their own solutions.
Lack of free plugins.
Lack of themes (great designers necessary).
Posting requires setting options for URL Alias, Menus, Revision Logs, Comments, and Author Meta data.
Lacks in terms of unofficial support beyond the main documentation.

Organizations that use Drupal as their CMS include: the White House, The Economist, MTV, Optima Bank, PInterest, London.gov.uk, NYU College of Nursing, the Onion, and the US Dept. of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

WORDPRESS

Benefits: What started as a blogging platform in 2003, WordPress has evolved to be used as a full content management system and so much more through the use of the thousands of plugins and widgets and themes. The biggest selling points of WordPress are that it’s easy to install, administer, and to add popular and common features. It is also the ideal CMS for those with little to no technical know-how and learning this CMS couldn’t be easier. Utilizing a WYSIWYG editor (as opposed to code), makes changing, deleting, modifying, adding, and editing content and images simple to learn and simple to execute. Websites using WordPress can be customized through the use of nearly 15,000 (yes, 15,000!) widgets, plug-ins, and modules, and with its stable plug-in API architecture it’s easy to develop your own plug-ins.

Factors definitely not to be overlooked are WordPress’ strong SEO capabilities and extensive support via Google searches. The ease and flexibility to create mobile, tablet, and desktop themes of high customization is also a unique benefit (though they must be built-in by the developer). Last, but certainly not least, WordPress is a highly flexible CMS, enabling people of all technological backgrounds the ability to create blogs, eCommmerce sites, websites, and more. Though impossible to pinpoint exactly why 58.8% of all websites created with content management systems, or 20.2% of all websites, use WordPress, ease of use would most likely be at or near the top of the list. In total, a WordPress site is filled with the latest technology at an affordable price.

Easy to install.
Easy to administer.
Easy to add popular and common features.
Easiest learning curve; ideal for those with little to no technical background.
Strong SEO capabilities.
Highly flexible (blog, eCommerce, website, etc.)
Does not require coding to edit.
Easy posting using WYSIWG interface.
Stable plug-in API architecture (i.e. easy to develop plugins)
Websites can be completely customized through the use of widgets and plug-ins.
Most extensive number of extension vendors and themes.
Extensive support via Google searches.

Perceived Weaknesses: Being based on blog platform architecture poses some hardships, such as limited content management capabilities. Plugins are often required to add or enhance built-in features. An example is that while WordPress was created to be a discussion forum it still requires a third-party plugin to have granular control over who can access and edit every aspect of the site. Because of this reliance on plugins (and the systems popularity) there remains the possibility of insecurity, requiring updating of the platform and its plugins on a regular basis.

And in a time when optimized websites are a must, WordPress does not automatically create responsive sites. The theme developer must currently create responsive themes. Solutions for problems can usually be found doing a simple Google search, but unlike Drupal and Joomla, WordPress has significantly higher online support. Finding solutions is usually more streamlined than with other platforms.

Requires a third-party plugin to have granular controls.
Must be updated with latest plugins and WordPress versions for security purposes.
Blog platform architecture poses difficulties unless planned.
Limited content management capabilities without plugins (due to blog platform architecture).
Doesn’t automatically create responsive sites.

Organizations that use WordPress as their CMS include MSNBC TV, Tribune Media Group, Best Buy, Forbes Blogs, Xerox, Brazilian Culture Ministry, Wheaton College, and NY Times Blogs.

JOOMLA

Benefits: First released in 2005 after forking from Mambo, Joomla is one of the newer kids on the CMS block but it’s quickly established itself as a major player. Today 3.3% of all websites, or 9.5% of all websites built on a content management system use Joomla. It is considered a wise choice for those who fall between tech-pros and tech-newbies, as it’s easy to install and automatically creates responsive sites. With its strong content management capabilities, thousands of features and designs, and an extensive plugin (‘extensions’ in Joomla-talk) library, this CMS offers a great deal to people across a broad spectrum of technological knowledge. And if questions or problems arise, Joomla has strong, well-maintained support communities and forums. Google Analytics also comes included free of charge.

Easy to install.
Ideal for those who fall between tech-pros and tech-newbies.
Strong content management capabilities.
Automatically creates responsive sites.
Thousands of features and designs.
Extensive plugin (‘extensions’) library.
Strong well maintained support communities and forums

Perceived Weaknesses: There is a rather steep learning curve, particularly regarding our new site’s functions and general usage. This combines with the fact that posting requires HTML/code, the inability to allocate different web pages to different CSS, and the lowest number of plugins, modules, and extensions of the three CMSs, makes Joomla somewhat difficult for the average layman to use. From a technical viewpoint, Joomla lacks elements critical for on-site optimization, it’s not search engine friendly particularly with regards to URLs, and an SEO plugin must be purchased for SEO optimization. Customization of sites is limited, as is the Access Control List (ACL), which refers to a list of permissions that can be granted to specific users for specific pages.

Steep learning curve, particularly the functions and general usage.
Lacking elements important for on-site optimization.
Not ideal for large-scale websites.
Posting requires HTML/code.
Commercial presence of mods & themes not the most extensive.
Not search engine friendly particularly with regards to URLs.
Must purchase SEO plug-ins for SEO optimization.
Limited customization.
Limited Access Control List (ACL) refers to a list of permissions that can be granted to specific users for specific pages.
Unable to allocate different web pages to different CSS.

Organizations that use Joomla as their CMS include: Heathrow Airport, Barnes & Noble, eBay, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Holiday Inn, Porsche, Guaranty Trust Bank, and Exact Software.