SEO implications of using a CMS

Do Search Engines penalise code generated by a CMS?

[MikeCJ]

I want to create a site that provides user-interactive features and am considering using a CMS. However, the code they generate often seems clumsy and doesn't validate.

I understand that Search Engines might penalise my site based on the quality of the code generated by a CMS. Is this true? Do some CMS's perform better than others from an SEO perspective?

I've been looking at:

dotnetnuke
Mambo
Drupal
e107

I would be grateful for any advice/ recommendations.

[Receptional Andy]

I agree that CMS code is usually somewhat sub-optimal ;)

Search Engines might penalise my site based on the quality of the code

Search engines won't actively penalise your site for bad code, even if the code is invalid, but they might inadvertently make your page harder to interpret, and this can certainly result in problems performing well. 'One size fits all' can also make it difficult to make beneficial changes.

Do some CMS's perform better than others from an SEO perspective

Yes! Although 'out of the box' few (none?) could be considered truly optimised.

recommendations

Specific recommendations are really impossible, although many CMS can be made much better via additional development and/or plugins.

[ronin]

I am looking to automate some of my site maintenance and so this is a topic that interests me too.

Given that I still use a manual text-editor (not notepad but similar) I am supposing anything which saved me time would be an improvement.

Specific recommendations are really impossible

Does anyone here have any favourites (CMS + mods) which they find to be SEO-friendly and use regularly, though?

I'm looking for CMS which are Apache / PHP compatible.

[gecko1]

The main problem with CMSs is avoiding duplicate content issues. Most CMSs will have this problem out of the box. If you can access the same content through different ways, search engines may detect this as duplicate content.

Joomla with advanced SEF Urls is working well on one of my sites.

[jaffstar]

I have had this issue and thats why I have my own custom CMS systems built EXACTLY according to my specification for each new project.

Yes, they might cost more. But the rewards pay off!

Disclaimer: DO not attempt this if you are not an SEO Expert and are not good at software development/spec'ing.

[erased]

WordPress has great SEO plug-ins, but its extensibility can be very limited if you're new to coding your own plug-ins for it. (Yes, it can be used as a full CMS, not just a blog...)

Mambo is a great CMS with bookoos of mod developers and SEO mods. Mambo is an all around great choice as you're able to control the output quite well with it.