Best SEO Friendly CMS software?

Hi, this is my first post here, I hope this question is in the right section, but I am wondering what is the best SEO friendly CMS software system out there? Preferably it should be something open-source. I was thinking something along the lines like Joomla or Mambo. What CMS system out there has the best reputation? Without going into something different like WordPress.

If not, does anyone have any tips or can refer me to links that show how to best optimize something like Joomla for the search engines?

Ideally it would be nice if anyone can post links to websites that use a CMS that ranks highly for specific keywords. Edit: You may also PM me if you do not wish to post a link here.

Thanks!

I know you weren't looking to change programs, but I have had great experience with Drupal ... pretty much within weeks I have seen search ranks grow across a wide variety of search terms and in most cases ranking first in Google with targeted keywords ...

Thanks for the response. Can you post some of these sites that rank highly and for which keywords?

most cms's out of the box are barely seo friendly (usually)

but for joomla, there are tons of add-ons you can use.

OpenSEF or artioSEF for search engine friendly urls, meta tag generator for editing multiple tags at once (manually or automatically).

all my sites are joomla, and i only use those 2 add-ons and i rank number 1 for a few major keywords, and top 5 for all my other keywords across the engine board for the most part.

I agree with both the posts above.. none of the out-of -box CMS are SEO Friendly but Joomla is relatively easy to customize with the help of the plug ins. Howver, Drupal is by far the best. If you can customize it properly Drupal can actually be very search engine friendly

One of the main sites is mainewebfx dot com, which is located and geared toward Biddeford Maine businesses ... ranks first with biddeford maine web design and even ranks well with the surrounding towns of biddeford maine

Thanks for the recomendations doncharlie24 could you please link me to one or 2 of your sites along with the particular keywords they rank highly for? It would be very helpful as I am more particularly interested in the Joomla application.




fusionwebfx, thanks a lot for the info, I've been trying to get "proof" so to speak of CMS-SEO friendlyness for some time now and you're the first to provide an actual link. Drupal seems to be working for you nicely. I have tinkered around with Drupal just a tad in the past and although it seems like a good choice SEO wise, it is not so clear cut on the admin side. I am planning to making a website for someone who barely knows how to send an e-mail let alone edit their own website content, so I need something that's very straight forward. I will keep Drupal in mind though.

Can I ask how many of your pages on that site are static html pages and how many were generated by Drupal? Is the first page html or drupal made? Can search engines actually read the content generated in Drupal? I'm sort of new to understanding how an SE is capable(if it can) of reading generated content.

why are you looking for particular sites along with keywords?

do you not think its possible?

The site was made totally with drupal, so there aren't any static pages on the site (so to speak). There are options when creating each of the pages to promote to the front page, allow comments, etc. The site is geared to be more "static looking" not allowing comments, etc. for the pages .... but those are options you can make when putting the site together.

As with other content management systems, there are plug ins (or modules with drupal) that can allow for some SEO per page or per site, much as mata data for each page (which contrary to what others think, I still believe works for a purpose), as well as xml sitemaps. Each of these things are parts to the site that the designer will set up. As for the admin panel, it takes a bit to get used to if you are new (or your client is), but as the designer, you also have options to let the client see only certain parts of the administration pages to make it not so overwhelming for them.

I have used Joomla and its SEO add-ons. They are quite adequate for general SEO purposes, like customizing urls, title tags, meta tags, h tags, etc. However, some of the Joomla add-ons take a bit mucking around to get them work well. I haven't used Drupal, but heard it is very SEO-friendly.

Onsite SEO is important, but you can only get so far with it. Link building is the key to get your site to the top.

Anyone have an example of a joomla or drupal site they'd be willing to show off? I am looking at one of the 2 but would like to see some successful sites to gain a better opinion. You can PM if you dont want to post it in the forum. Thanks

creditdebtsconsolidation dot com is what im working on right now, made in Joomla

I didn't say it's not possible but there is a big difference when it comes to saying something can be done and showing me something can be done especially in the SEO field. If a CMS site has the ability to rank high for a vastly obscure word, that's not what I'm really looking for. The proof is in the pudding so to speak so people who give comments along with examples hold more weight with me but thanks for the input.




Sounds very good fusiionwebfx thanks again for helping me out.




That site looks very clean volk23, but I'm not sure I can find actual conent there besides link ads. What keywords is your site ranking highly for?

I understand your point. I'll speak for doncharlie as I have seen his site and it ranks well. He has a nice site and it appears that any SEO efforts put into the CMS he is using is paying off. I am not friends with doncharlie and just know him from here. But I did see his site rank well for some terms he was going after. If that is any consolation to you.

its not ranking for anything yet. just started working on it few weeks ago, still on the learning curve on Joomla