Is RapidWeaver Better Than iWeb?
Having written many an article about how to make iWeb more search engine friendly, and highlighting all the areas where it lacks decent SEO support, I was contacted by the team at macwyse.com to discuss the possibility of giving a course or two on the topic as part of their wider web design with RapidWeaver for small businesses.
Opening the lid on RapidWeaver is like entering a whole other world compared to iWeb. The developer and theme SDKs and documentation are a breathe of fresh air in comparison to the closed development and add-on environment of iWeb. That being said, does this really make it (a) better than iWeb and (b) better at SEO in general? The answer to (a) is quite clearly yes, though with a price tag, a small ransom to pay for improved opportunities, as for (b) compared to iWeb, the answer is most definitely yes.
The problem is that all this software is created by programmers with little thought for the basics of web design and SEO in general. After years of complaint from authors and developers alike, blogs and content management systems are paying better attention to detail but it has been a long and winding road, that’s for sure.
In that respect RapidWeaver is definitely ahead of the game in the types of things it allows users to do, from adding meta-tags to adding breadcrumb trails, creating cruftless links, changing directory path names and file names and more, so in that respect RapidWeaver is definitely better than iWeb, but there is definitely room for improvement and significant failings, as with everything, nothing is perfect, and the new version 4.0 is heading in a better direction for WYSIWYG editors.
Overall, the SEO process is certainly part human know-how and engagement, part software-based, but when tools actually block the user from doing what is right regarding, not just SEO but good web design and programming principle, then you have to just throw your arms up in horror!
Anyhow, back to the original question, in a battle between iWeb and RapidWeaver, I would take RapidWeaver, every single time.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
It sounds like you were pained to work within a box containing only iWeb and RapidWeaver, yet the only alternative for the Mac platform that I know of is Adobe Dreamweaver. I downloaded that once and couldn’t for the life of me fathom what I was supposed to do with it. And for the price of Dreamweaver, I waned someone to hold my hand and ’splain it all to me in soothing tones whispered directly into my ear.
So there’s got to be something that falls between the amateur level programs like iWeb and RapdidWeaver and the heavy artillary designed for professional Web developers. Well, I GUESS there has to be something that falls in between, somethign that is both robust but delivers a WYSIWYG user interface.
Can you name THAT program?
August 6th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I would argue that Rapidweaver is the ‘middle ground’ program in comparison to iWeb and Adobe Dreamweaver if….you add the plug-ins that are necessary to make Rapidweaver really work. Plug-ins like Blocks, Stacks, Collage, Accordion, Kwix, Carousel, and many more. Here is the website that seemed to finally display a good healthy amount of plug-ins and training for them: http://rapidweaverclassroom.com/curriculum.html
Just like normal, look on Youtube for some training videos and for more plug-ins with their tips on how to make Rapidweaver provide your ‘middle ground’ needs.
-charles