Before covering the topic, how a content management system can ruin your search engine positions, let me clear up what each of these things are.
A content management system (known as a CMS) is a facility that allows a user to manage text, images, etc on their web site without having any web design skills. An example of a CMS is a latest news section on a corporate site. The CMS allows the website owners to add new news items without having to learn the technicalities of web development.
Your search engine position is where your website appears on the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) for a given phrase. Obviously, the higher you appear, the better. The process of making your site appear higher is known as search engine optimisation (SEO).
Sometimes clients ask to have all their site editable via a CMS. They do so in fear of being lumbered with future bills for amends. Additionally, if you have a CMS you can access this whenever you want; you’re not waiting for a third party. However, making the entire site content managed is not a good idea. One of the keys to designing a good content management system is to only allow a client to edit the areas they really need to. These would primarily be areas where pages would be added (such as a blog) or areas of transient content (such as special offers and events).
So, why is this a bad idea? Read more »
