All in One SEO Pack is an all in one waste of time in my opinion. Can’t imagine that everyone doesn’t already know WTF this thing is. For those living in a box the last year or so it is a WordPress plugin that is supposed to make sweet SEO love to your blog and posts. The thing is on every guberus list of must have WordPress plugins. Hell I even use it on this stupid blog. Why? Because I’m supposed to that’s why.
I dislike the time consumption of writing the post, coming up with a title and splashing a few tags into the post then having to go down to the bottom and deal with the SEO Pack. You have to scroll up and copy and paste the title. Then you get pissed because you already posted your tags so you have to type those out again. Then you get to come up with a groovy description of the post. I’ve been writing posts for the TKA article directories all day and am sick and tired of dealing with it.
I’ve been doing this on just about all of my self-hosted blogs. Except one in particular that I just never got around to adding it to. Funny thing happened. That blog gets the most traffic of any of my self hosted blogs. By far. I rank like a god for excellent keywords. I get well over a thousand visitors a day.
Now along with this blog I have three other blogs that hover in roughly the same niche. A network of sorts but not really. They each have SEO Pack to deal with. They get half the traffic. Not bad but nothing like the rogue blog. All have about the same amount of backlinks but really that’s irrelevant as far as the whether SEO Pack is worthwhile or not. The point is that a blog can survive, and thrive, nicely without fooling around with the thing.
I get a stupid amount of traffic with my WordPress hosted blogs and they don’t have SEO Pack either. The thing is keywords do not matter to Google.
At least for Google’s web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in our web search ranking.
And the description does not matter to Google either.
Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don’t use the description meta tag in our ranking.
But dude the title is important. Sure it is but I’ve already got one of those. I don’t need to add another. So in my estimation SEO Pack, at least for posts, is a waste of time. Maybe to juice your home title it is worthwhile. And if you want to play nice you can add a description. But overall it provides nothing for me except as an all in one time waster.
Just another case of me zigging while the herd zags. Mileage variables are engaged.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I rarely use to rewrite descrptions – sometimes ocaisaionally on my flagship when the first 140 charactersare way off topic for dramatic effect LOL I do use the home page options and the indexing options but that is just a one off thing
I agree with you, Splork. All-in-one SEO is next to useless.
Much better is Headspace2 (http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/). More control and more intuitive.
I also find it easier to use WP’s tag suggester rather than rack my brain for the perfect tag. I think this is only available in later versions of WP though.
How dare you dis’ the all-in-one SEO pack. What kind of freakin lunatic disses that plugin???
You need to get your mindset right if you wanna make it in this business dude. I got where I am by having the right attitude, and by following the big marketers who already paved the way. Guys who understand the value of the SEO pack and so forth.
Uh…Nevermind, I kid.
Splork, I so agree with you on this one. In fact I am getting sick and tired of WP all together. Every time I turn around there is another mega important update. Templates break, plugins need upgrading, mega drag on resources, just a ton of time wasted trying to keep up and keep websites running. My first MMO website is broken and has been broke since the last WP update. I am sick of missing with all this backend stuff. I’d rather devote my time to writing content and getting backlinks.
I have been building more static sites lately and they are doing as well if not better than WP blogs. Plus if I need a blog, I use Blogger. Just as powerful in my opinion and no plugins to mess with.
Yea, I don’t have but a few WP blogs that I host myself. I use quite a few blog sites like Blogger and wordpress.com that are much easier to handle than dealing with my own plugins and database. There are also some other blog sites that I am using from other social sites that are easy to use and are doing fine.
Anyway if I build niche sites I use XSP. Nice static sites easy to use and easy to update. and the hosting is never a problem. Like you I typically go elsewhere for a blog.
I find I am using XSP more and more all the time. I am even using them to build some pretty big flagship blogs as well.
I am really impressed with the updates and I find it way easier to be more creative implementing what I want on a site. With WP I get the templates all messed up.
Looks like I’m not alone in this! I’m getting tired of WP too and that bloody plugin is forever updating and switching itself off then asking me to donate for all the damn trouble it causes me. Well, bye bye panhandling plugin! Each time I update one of my WP blogs (unfortunately I still have way too many) that plugin gets switched off!
Google really doesn’t care less about on-site SEO to a degree. I also have a WP blog that never got AIO installed and it also does very well thank you very much. As long as the title matches the h1, and the post title is relevant along with the content, what do you need all that extra crap for?
Yea I couldn’t agree more. The main thing that was pissing me off about it is that out of all the plugins I use, it is the one that is most often responsible for breaking sites. Also, the constant updates are extremely annoying. I set up a batch of new sites a couple months ago and it wasn’t agreeing with my auto-wp-install, so I just left it off rather than upgrading everything. I haven’t missed it at all, and I likely won’t use it on anymore new sites.
Splork, know this is an old post but wanted to mention something.
I use WP for 5 sites (not blogs but I use it more as a CMS). I have the AIOSEOP installed on all 5 and I find it valuable b/c while what you mention about Google is correct (the KW an DESC tag aren’t factored into ranking) the desc tag can be very powerful at getting a click through from the SERPS.
Your title tag & desc tag can make up your result in the Google SERPS. So this can influence your Click through for when your site displays on a results page.
Writing a good title of 8-10 words that pushes the click through is important IMHO and then having a longer title for my articles that is compelling is different again.
I then write about a 150 word desc that works well with my title to get the click.
If you haven’t yet check your web master tools for Top search queries to see what words your site is appearing for and if they are or aren’t getting clicks from the SERPs.
Changing your Title tags to be more compelling for those pages could mean a lot to your traffic for particular keywords.
Cheers,
Spikey
Very interesting points here. I’m new to this and using wordpress and I agree with Splork about the up-down up-down to to use All in one SEO. Guess I can forget about it now.
Yea, I don’t disagree with the power of the title. Absolutely you should get that right. I’m just done with the extra time suck of using the plugin. The benefits for me are just not there. Folks will have to determine for themselves if it is worthwhile.
The recommendation at hubpages is 1,500 words. Hopefully we dont have to start writing 15,000 words to get top ranking soon!