Does having too many widgets hurt SEO?

JennyJ

Member
I was reading something earlier that said that if you have too many widgets on your website then that might affect the SEO and hurt your site.

Is that true or is that just someones theory?

I have to admit that I don't know much about SEO but that seems like that wouldn't be right.
 

Ben

Active Member
They are probably meaning that it might hurt your SEO because if you have too many widgets or some that are just slow loading then that will hurt the load times of your site and the overall user experience and can hurt things like the bounce rate and pages visited.

If they don't really affect speed then I don't know how exactly they would hurt the SEO of the site.
 

JohnQ

Member
They were probably talking about it hurting your SEO because of your page load times. More widgets means more code that is needed to load and that can slow down load times.

It also depends on what the widgets are because certain ones are obviously going to have different affects on that.
 

JennyJ

Member
They are probably meaning that it might hurt your SEO because if you have too many widgets or some that are just slow loading then that will hurt the load times of your site and the overall user experience and can hurt things like the bounce rate and pages visited.

If they don't really affect speed then I don't know how exactly they would hurt the SEO of the site.
Maybe that's what they were meaning then. They just didn't state exactly why and didn't give any good details so it sounded bogus.

They were probably talking about it hurting your SEO because of your page load times. More widgets means more code that is needed to load and that can slow down load times.

It also depends on what the widgets are because certain ones are obviously going to have different affects on that.
I guess that's what they were meaning. It would have been nice if they went into more detail as to why.
 

JohnQ

Member
I guess that's what they were meaning. It would have been nice if they went into more detail as to why.
a lot of people are just vague on the information they provide because they are either writing the article and assuming you would know why or they just researched something and wrote about a topic they really knew not much about.
 

KeralMTG

Active Member
Yes too many widgets can hurt your seo for your site because it can slow it down. More widgets require more code that has to load every time someone goes to a page on your site. More to load means slower but it might not be a lot slower but it depends on what the widget is for.
 

Ben

Active Member
Maybe that's what they were meaning then. They just didn't state exactly why and didn't give any good details so it sounded bogus.
It probably was that or maybe they were talking about poor coding. Who knows?
 

JennyJ

Member
a lot of people are just vague on the information they provide because they are either writing the article and assuming you would know why or they just researched something and wrote about a topic they really knew not much about.
If they aren't going to at least explain a little then they should just not post anything about that subject.

Yes too many widgets can hurt your seo for your site because it can slow it down. More widgets require more code that has to load every time someone goes to a page on your site. More to load means slower but it might not be a lot slower but it depends on what the widget is for.
They might be talking about the code but they just don't say anything about what exactly they are talking about.

It probably was that or maybe they were talking about poor coding. Who knows?
Maybe but they should at least give a little detail.
 

JohnQ

Member
If they aren't going to at least explain a little then they should just not post anything about that subject.
I agree with you but like many sites that are around these days the writers are just writing what topics they think people want but without any previous knowledge on what they are writing about.

Sad but true most times. :(
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
Having too many widgets isn't really what would hurt the SEO of your website. It's what the widgets are that has the potential to hurt your site's SEO.

If the widgets are causing your site to load too slow or are badly coded then that could potentially affect the SEO.

It's more about what exactly the widgets are and how they influence other things that could hurt your site.
 

JennyJ

Member
Having too many widgets isn't really what would hurt the SEO of your website. It's what the widgets are that has the potential to hurt your site's SEO.

If the widgets are causing your site to load too slow or are badly coded then that could potentially affect the SEO.

It's more about what exactly the widgets are and how they influence other things that could hurt your site.
The we just need to make sure that the widgets are fast loading and coded right?
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
The we just need to make sure that the widgets are fast loading and coded right?
Well that would be a good start. The problem is being able to find out and that would take some testing and some knowledge of coding.
 

IdealMike

New Member
Yeah, it's pretty basic common sense why having too many widgets can be bad for SEO. Simply because each one adds new elements, content etc to your site. And that means they have to all load making it take longer for your site to load. And that can decrease your page loading time which is a huge ranking factor today!

Next question? :D
 

JennyJ

Member
Well that would be a good start. The problem is being able to find out and that would take some testing and some knowledge of coding.
I can probably test things out but I don't know how to code so that would not work. Maybe I just need to try different ones and see how it affects my site.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
I can probably test things out but I don't know how to code so that would not work. Maybe I just need to try different ones and see how it affects my site.
You can also look for reviews on certain ones to see what others have done as far as testing and that might save a little time if you can find good information.
 

JennyJ

Member
You can also look for reviews on certain ones to see what others have done as far as testing and that might save a little time if you can find good information.
That's a good idea. I read on some blog somewhere that had a lot of posts and articles about speed for wordpress. I can't remember the site but he seemed to be obsessed with speed of a website.
 

Maria Marketing

Active Member
I do not know too much about SEO but I used to have a lot of widgets on my blog and it was taking a long time to load the pages on it until I removed around half of them and then it started to load much faster. It was near 3 seconds faster to load my pages after I removed some of the widgets so I know people will like that and maybe that also helps the SEO.
 

JennyJ

Member
I do not know too much about SEO but I used to have a lot of widgets on my blog and it was taking a long time to load the pages on it until I removed around half of them and then it started to load much faster. It was near 3 seconds faster to load my pages after I removed some of the widgets so I know people will like that and maybe that also helps the SEO.
It made that much of a difference by just making changes to your amount of widgets?
 

Maria Marketing

Active Member
It made that much of a difference by just making changes to your amount of widgets?
Yes that is all that I did and kept rechecking after each widget was removed. I was actually really surprised because the widgets were small but I think it was the code for them or something.
 
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