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Website Ranking and WordPress Plug-Ins

In the late two thousand teens the complexity of what actually composes a website has grown. Now, websites are made up of several key ingredients, all put together and served to the viewer. Google is aware of the way WordPress (or any other CMS for that matter) works and have changed their algorithms over time to adjust to them. The main factors that Google cares about when it comes to WordPress sites are site speed and site security.

Speed

If a website is loaded down with plug-ins and advertisements and takes over 5 seconds to fully load, you can bet that Google will punish it. Even if it is your best intention to serve up a site with a ton of information, those slow loading plug-ins are costing you traffic. There are several steps you can take to improve your site’s speed:

1. Keep plug-ins to minimum. The less plug-ins you have, the less time it will take to load that page.  That simple.
2. Install a cache plug-in. These plug-ins will keep a recently served copy of the site handy and serve it to the next viewer without having to pull every piece, every time the page is served.
3. Optimize images. Make sure every image is as small as it can be (data size).

Security

Security is a big one. If your site is carrying plug-ins that are known to be vulnerable to hackers then you will be punished in your ranking. Also, if your plug-in is working fine but had not been updated in a long time by the plug-in author, Google can detect this and start to bury you.

Fixes:

1. Manually log in once in a while and check the plug-ins. Make sure they are still being supported. If they are not, switch to a more recent solution.
2. Update your plug-ins. You can do this manually or install a plug-in that does it automatically.

We also recommend installing a security plug in (like Wordfence) and a login security plug-in. If you protect the most obviously vulnerable parts of the site, then you can work outward.

For instructions on how to clean a hacked WordPress site click here