Adobe Experience Manager SEO Worse than Drupal by

Introduction

There are galore choices retired determination for Web Content Management Systems (WCMS). Many commercialized tools tout features and accidental that they comparison favorably to Drupal, the starring unfastened root solution for blase WCMS. In this brief, I person researched to the champion of my quality the features that marque Drupal basal retired from Adobe Experience Manager SEO.

I connection these caveats to my findings:

1) I person ne'er personally utilized Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). That, successful and of itself, is simply a drawback to the system. It is hard to get a moving demo of the platform. In Drupal, anyone tin download and instal it.

2) I person not talked to immoderate Adobe representatives astir these findings. Instead, I utilized Adobe’s nationalist documentation to bash my research. I besides looked astatine 3rd enactment how-to websites and a fistful of published books. I person included links to publically disposable resources erstwhile available.

3) I americium a Drupal SEO expert, not an Adobe Experience Manager adept truthful my viewpoint is skewed.

However, I americium a large instrumentality of Adobe and person been since I started utilizing Photoshop successful 1993. I judge that these findings are fair, accurate, and genuinely bespeak immoderate of the advantages that Drupal brings to the array and the enactment inactive up for AEM.

Community Responsiveness

In Drupal, you get an unfastened root assemblage that has proved consenting to bash thing to marque the product, tract builder, marketer, and idiosyncratic experiences better. A precise caller illustration of this is the merchandise of Google AMP (https://amp.dev/).

Announced successful precocious 2015, the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project is “an unfastened root inaugural that embodies the imaginativeness that publishers tin make mobile optimized contented erstwhile and person it load instantly everywhere”. It’s a mode to springiness a overmuch faster contented acquisition to mobile users. While inactive successful its infancy, it’s a precise promising exertion that volition payment the full web.

Google has specifically stated that it volition commencement giving penchant (e.g. higher rankings and much traffic) to sites that usage AMP. (https://www.wired.com/2016/02/google-will-now-favor-pages-use-fast-loading-tech/) The Drupal assemblage released a beta AMP diagnostic successful precocious Feb, 2016.

This allows astir immoderate Drupal 7 oregon 8 tract to service AMP-powered pages. As of May 16, aft extended online searches, I can’t find immoderate documentation of enactment successful Adobe Experience Manager for Google AMP.

(Note that Adobe Analytics is an progressive spouse successful AMP truthful tracking AMP pages does beryllium nevertheless determination are nary instructions oregon references connected however to service AMP successful immoderate documentation that I tin presently find.)

Advanced Tools for Paths

In Adobe Experience Manager, vanity URLs bash not enactment regex patterns. (https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-2/deploy/configuring/resource-mapping.html) What this means is that you can’t bash redirects similar specify a signifier similar "old-blog/*" and a people similar "new-blog" and each pages nether old-blog volition beryllium redirected to the leafage new-blog.

In Drupal, this functionality has been supported since September 2013 with the Match Redirect module (https://www.drupal.org/project/match_redirect). This greatly simplifies and reduces work, arsenic anyone who has decided to alteration their tract operation tin attest.

Migration is Easier

Another path-related illustration that seems to person nary corollary successful Adobe Experience Manager is Pathologic. (https://www.drupal.org/project/pathologic) Pathologic is an “input filter” module. This means that it runs connected your contented and makes immoderate accommodation oregon alteration to it earlier the server pushes it retired to the visitor’s browser.

In this case, Pathologic fixes breached links successful situations erstwhile URLs person changed. For example, if you determination to a caller domain sanction oregon your tract operation changes, say, you moved your Drupal installation from 1 directory to another.

Well, normally, that breaks hundreds oregon thousands of links, images, and references. Pathologic cleanly fixes this occupation easily. Another large illustration is that comparative links oregon embedded images that usage comparative URLs don’t enactment successful RSS feeds. Pathologic fixes that rapidly and easily.

Automatic Fixes to Rewritten URLs

Yet different path-related contented is that Adobe Experience Manager doesn’t look to connection immoderate benignant of automatic fixes if a way is changed. In Drupal, this is handled by the Redirect module. So, for example, you constitute a Product leafage connected your tract called “Keywords and Me” which lives astatine www.myurl.com/keywords-and-me.

But then, aft a year, you recognize that to SEO that page, you request to alteration it to “Key Phrases and Me” and alteration the URL to “www.myurl.com/key-phrases-and-me”. Drupal, erstwhile decently configured, would automatically make a 301 redirect from the aged URL to the caller URL.

This would sphere overmuch of the worth of your incoming links, supply a amended idiosyncratic experience, and update Google that the aged contented lives astatine a caller address.

Duplicate Content

Doublemint Gum In fact, the full vanity URL strategy successful Adobe Experience Manager has a inclination to make duplicate content. That is, contented that lives connected 2 antithetic URLs. (See the video: https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/kb/vanity-urls.html). The video demonstrates however contented lives astatine 1 URL but the vanity URL besides shows the nonstop aforesaid content.

This would require, astatine the minimum, a canonical tag to fto Google cognize wherever the contented really lives. Either Adobe expects users of their strategy to already cognize this, it was overlooked, oregon it’s not possible.

Preventing Common Errors

The leafage (https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/kb/vanity-urls.html) describes a concern wherever the Adobe Experience Manager admin accidentally defined 2 antithetic pages to resoluteness connected a azygous URL “dealoftheday”.

There is simply a analyzable acceptable of steps and a abstracted “Sling Resource Resolver” instrumentality required to place the occupation and code the issue. In Drupal, this simply cannot hap arsenic a informing would hap that allows the contented creator to hole this glaring occupation erstwhile the contented is created.

In fact, these kinds of user-friendly warnings that forestall communal errors are utilized passim the Drupal admin interface to assistance forestall the inevitable cruft that builds up successful long-standing web projects.

Simplicity for Marketers

Drupal has taken large strides successful making it arsenic casual arsenic imaginable for you to SEO your website. There are galore tools to execute conscionable astir thing you tin imagine. And, astir of them usage the aforesaid admin interface embedded successful Drupal that is familiar. There is extended documentation arsenic good arsenic embedded assistance text.

After spending a fewer hours speechmaking Adobe’s Experience Manager documentation, I’ve concluded that SEO connected Adobe Experience Manager is simply a analyzable undertaking. Take a look astatine https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-2/manage/seo-and-url-management.html. An illustration sentence:

The SCR annotation for this benignant of servlet would look thing similar this:

@SlingServlet(resourceTypes = "myBrand/components/pages/myPageType", selectors = "myRenderer", extensions = "json”, methods=”GET”)

In this case, the assets that the URL addresses, an lawsuit of the myPageType resource, is accessible successful the servlet automatically. To entree it, you call:

Resource myPage = req.getResource();

That's not precisely marketing-friendly. Here’s different one:
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‍The SlingResourceResolver tin beryllium recovered astatine /system/console/config connected immoderate AEM lawsuit and it is recommended that you physique retired the mappings that are needed to shorten URLs arsenic regular expressions and see these configurations nether a config.publish OsgiConfig node that is included successful your build. Rather than doing your mappings successful /etc/map, they tin beryllium assigned straight to the resource.resolver.mapping property:

resource.resolver.mapping="[/content/my-brand/(.*)$</$1]"

This isn’t thing that immoderate marketer tin oregon should person to understand. I recognize that determination are apt developers progressive successful a web task that recognize this benignant of tech-speak. However, the much I trust connected a technician to hole my SEO issues, the little power I person and the longer (generally) that it takes to marque the changes I need.

The Power of Taxonomy

Drupal has a strategy called Taxonomy that is an SEO’s dream. When a contented creator tags content, Drupal automatically creates a leafage for that tag that is good optimized for hunt engines. That tag leafage is automatically added to the XML Sitemap truthful it shows up successful Google quickly. And, erstwhile further contented is tagged with the aforesaid tag, the tag leafage is automatically updated.

Of people tag pages tin beryllium adjacent further optimized likewise to however node pages are optimized - with further substance and meta data. Adobe Experience Manager does enactment tagging but it seems to beryllium constricted to showing “tag clouds”.

It does not enactment customized tag pages and the tract admin indispensable “Select the leafage to beryllium referenced” by each tag - a time-consuming process that is not updated dynamically. (See https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-2/author/page-authoring/default-components/editmode.html #Tag Cloud)

The Development Effort Required for Great SEO

Adobe Experience Manager requires importantly much effort successful configuration than Drupal to execute optimal SEO. This means that determination is much to maintain, much things that could spell wrong, and much reliance connected the clip and method expertise of your improvement team.

Examples that tin beryllium taken from https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-2/manage/seo-and-url-management.html see Canonical URLs, Case Sensitivity, and XML Sitemap. I’m definite determination are others.

Conclusion

It’s wide that determination are galore chiseled SEO advantages to utilizing Drupal for your website. While this reappraisal is not conclusive, and it is astir definite that Adobe volition proceed to amended their merchandise and marque it a amended instrumentality and easier for marketers, arsenic it stands today, Drupal is the wide winner.

Even if Adobe does soon bring parity for SEO, the ongoing competitory vantage that Drupal has is the 1 addressed first: that of Community. The Drupal assemblage is many, galore times larger than the Adobe improvement team. That means that determination is and ever volition beryllium much resources going into making Drupal the champion that it tin be.

Drupal is backed by Acquia, who provides a level of enactment connected par with Adobe and galore much precocious personalization tools that marque Adobe Experience Manager truthful attractive. In my opinion, Drupal wins and volition support winning.

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