Page Builders vs. Wordpress

[dave101]

Curious if anyone has seen a difference in ranking from a website that is using like Elementor page builder on Wordpress VS a Wordpress website using a stock theme like GeneratePress. Interesting to know if there is any benefits for "not" using page builder tools.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@dave101, it doesn't make a difference. I've used Elementor (so-so), Divi (pretty good), other WP builders, stock themes, Wix (ugh), Weebly, Duda, others that I know I'm forgetting, a lot of horrible custom builders, and of course hand-coded sites (mostly back in the day). Assuming there aren't accessibility issues, I would say all that matters is (a) whether the product is still supported and is likely to stay supported and (b) how easily you can make basic changes and add pages. As long as the builder, theme, or platform isn't deprecated and doesn't slow your roll (too much) every time you work on it, it's all the same as far as SEO goes.

 

[djbaxter]

I never use Page Builders if I can help it, i.e., if the client is dedicated to using them. They are more trouble than they're worth and lack the precision of the old standard editor with both visual and code views.

 

[Conor Treacy]

We use Elementor on the majority of sites we've built in the last few years without any problem. We've been playing with the Gutenberg Blocks end of things and while OK, it's not fully fleshed out as other page builders are.

Any time you can go straight code and skip the builder, it's usually going to be a faster site, but from a client usability end of things, they really love Elementor.

No issues ranking a site whether built from code or from Elementor (of course, we strip down sections of Elementor and remove CSS and JS files that are not needed).