It’s a wonder that anyone uses Typepad anymore. Unless you have a private, rarely-updated blog you only want to share with your immediate family and close friends, I don’t know why anyone would choose Typepad as their blog platform. Not only is their user interface clunky, outdated, and unfriendly, but the out-of-box solution is so feature-poor that it would take no less than four handfuls of plugins just to make it a respectable solution (if they even have 20 plugins).
There’s No Such Thing as “Typepad SEO”
As an SEO that sometimes has to deal with Typepad, I’m resigned to just shrugging my shoulders and saying “That’s Typepad” when asked about how to reconcile Typepad with the ever-changing search landscape. It’s like trying to figure out how to burn an MP3 from an 8-track.
How I react to Typepad is not unlike how one would roll their eyes at their drunk relative making a fool of themselves at the family event AGAIN. It’s happening again, but there’s nothing really you can do about it.
Just so there’s some meat to this post instead of my just ending it with a TYPEPAD SUCKS PERIOD [/RANT], here are some of the more frustrating SEO issues I have with the out-of-the-box Typepad product:
- No Separate SEO Title: Yep, your editorial title and SEO title has to be the same.
- No Individual 301 Redirects: You can redirect within Typepad, but you can only redirect the entire site. Useful!
- Doesn’t Support Canonical Tags: Don’t even try adding canonical tags to your posts; they’ll disappear once you save.
- Cannot Rename Image Files: Typepad doesn’t even give you the option to rename your image file names, instead your stuck with an image file name that is a WAY TOO LONG string of random letters and numbers (e.g. 6a0fe54ee39a7883301a3fd402aee2970b-pi)
- No Author Profiles: You can have an author byline for your posts, but no author profiles. What sense does that make?
- No Micro Format/Schema Support: Not a big deal now, but it’s the future of SEO and just like rel-canonical tags, they’ll disappear.
- Typepad Server: All Typepad blogs are hosted by Typepad – can be a good or bad thing from a security standpoint, but for SEO, there are several reasons why this isn’t preferable in the eyes of the search engines.
Sigh, it makes me long for the days of Geocities SEO techniques.
To give you a sense of just how shockingly behind Typepad is with SEO, only three months ago did Typepad add a way to customize your meta descriptions. If you’re at all familiar with SEO, you know how ridiculous it is to have only added Meta Description flexibility in 2014. Let me say it again, Typepad JUST released a “feature” to customize META DESCRIPTIONS IN 2014. If you don’t think that’s silly, then you’ll also find this blog post helpful for your SEO needs (released in March 2014).
Just Don’t Use Typepad
There’s something romantic about sticking to your guns, Craigslist is a good example, but I just don’t understand a company that refuses to update their product in an industry with competitors that are continuously improving their products. At best, Typepad is about 8 years behind WordPress in terms of what features they offer out-of-the-box. Let’s just say Typepad’s strategy isn’t to be apart of the Internet of Things.
If for some reason you’re struggling deciding between Wordpress, Posterous, Squarespace, or Typepad as your blog solution. Struggle no more – just don’t pick Typepad. Seriously, you won’t regret going with anything else but Typepad.
