Re: plone.org/plone.com

Hi Liz,

I am an outsider to the history of Plone but have 10+ years dedicated to digital marketing and web optimization. I understand that there are some things that I am not aware of that led to the current state, or prevent change. However to keep Plone.org from it's slow decline in visits we believe a consolidated website is necessary. Below are a few pieces of information that were central to our thought process:

Looking at Plone EDU and Plone.gov as well as .org and .com it seemed like those groups and any others should also come underneath one plone.org  possibly as /EDU  /GOV.  I can share data on how this impacts SEO. You can see in the attached images how our SEO ranking is getting spread across these competing root domains particularly on "plone higher ed" with the plone edu site. Each subdomain of a root domain is treated separately just like any separate Top Level Domain, so the only way to combine all of your "web credibility" is to go subfolders.


Here is one resource on how websites are ranked that is pretty definitive.  Moz.com is the most respected company in the SEO space.
http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013
Here you will see Domain authority is a huge factor. Domain authority is heavily influenced by the number of page with high page authority and the number of links into the domain from external places.  Given the fact that majority of plone traffic is dev/tech we don't want to lose that with a marketing site that is separate. It will get lost behind all the plone.org links in the search engines and their opinion on the best source of plone cms info.


This is their page on the importance of domains. 
http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain

5. Subdomains or Sub-folders

Since search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do subdomains, it is recommended that webmasters place link-worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains. (i.e. www.example.com/blog/ rather than blog.example.com) The notable exceptions to this are language-specific websites. (i.e., en.example.com for the English version of the website).



Because of these things I and the sprint team I got to assist recommend one root domain with subfolders for each special interest group (SIG) that they can control. Devs can control the dev section, EDU can control theirs, and gov, etc.  And Marketing can stick with the homepage and subsections of it that are focused on getting business decision makers and technical newcomers interested enough in plone to learn more, dig into the dev section, install it, run a demo, call an expert, etc.

I look forward to improving the messaging around Plone and preparing for Plone 5.



Best, 


Jim Bartek 
Director of Marketing

-- 
Six Feet Up, Inc. | Where sophisticated web projects thrive 
Direct Line: +1 (317) 861-5948 x609 
Mobile: +1 (317) 292-6301 
Email: jim-qEDqLqPM/[email protected] 
Try Plone 4 Today at: http://plone4demo.com 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabrielle Hendryx-Parker" <gabrielle-qEDqLqPM/[email protected]>
To: "Elizabeth Leddy" <eleddy-z4DKO/[email protected]>
Cc: "Eric Rozeboom" <info-xGg7IV/s5CRmR6Xm/[email protected]>, "Carol Ganz" <carol-qEDqLqPM/[email protected]>, "charlie rimpila" <[email protected]>, "Jim Bartek" <jim-qEDqLqPM/[email protected]>, "Mark Corum" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 3:08:42 PM
Subject: Re: plone.org/plone.com

Hi Liz,

I am cc'ing the Bastille Day Sprint marketing crew so you have everybody's name. We all think that standing up another plone.com website will hurt SEO, require more development and maintenance work, and will create additional work to make sure the .com and .org sites are consistent with each other.

Our recommendation is to redesign plone.org with a focus on business-friendly content (while still keeping a dev center area), and simply redirect plone.com to plone.org.

We would all be happy to help out the team already working on plone.org if you'd like to make the introduction.

Thank you!
Gabrielle
-- 
Six Feet Up, Inc. | Where sophisticated web projects thrive
Direct Line: +1 (317) 861-5948 x601
Email: gabrielle-qEDqLqPM/[email protected]
Try Plone 4 Today at: http://plone4demo.com

On Jul 18, 2013, at 2:56 PM, Elizabeth Leddy <eleddy-z4DKO/[email protected]> wrote:

> Just saw the Bastille day sprint and it looks like things went amazingly well!!! I was just curious if I can have contact emails of people working on plone.com and especially plone.org. We have a team of people already working on plone.org and I think they should all be happy fun time together and work on it. The more opinions here the better.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Liz
> 
> -- 
> Elizabeth Leddy
> Sent with Sparrow
>

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