Search engine optimization has played a pivotal role in brands reaching audiences for more than 20 years. While once a very simple set of tasks, SEO has since evolved into a complex entity with hundreds of unique considerations. Likewise, the technical capabilities of websites and software have also exploded. As such, many brands now combine the two, using a complex variety of SEO plugins and add-ons to accentuate their broader SEO strategies.

Yet some SEO gurus swear that using such plugins may not just be unnecessary, but also potentially harmful to long-term SEO goals. To better understand these concerns and determine whether or not they should be yours as well, let’s dive in and examine why you might want to remove those current add-ons your website is using.

Duplicate Issues

When incorporating a plugin into an existing website for the purposes of SEO, one obvious problem arises: is this plugin addressing basic concerns your existing efforts are already handling? Besides the fact that most SEO plugins are finicky on multiple levels, creating seeming conflicts across various elements on pages or the website as a whole where the issue of SEO is already being addressed can be a frustrating situation.

By pinging to Google and other search engines effective SEO endeavors through on-page and technical optimizations, most SEO plugins are rendered null and void. A basic crash course in proper formatting and optimization can often be enough to replace SEO plugins entirely: why deal with having to sift through potential duplicate alerts and issues when you can simply solve these problems yourself?

Bugs and Problems

It shouldn’t be a surprise that third-party apps, plugins and add-ons can create issues with existing web infrastructure. Whether you are using Joomla, WordPress, Drupal or an entirely different content management system, sometimes plugins do not play nice with other web-based features.

In order to ensure your website and its broader SEO infrastructure are operating efficiently and without conflict across areas of user experience, choosing to opt out of excess plugins is recommended. This means that if you have a sound grasp of SEO basics, adding a redundant add-on will only create the potential for conflicts among your necessary plugins and/or user experience.

Standalone Solutions Address Problems More Efficiently

Even without the existence of overt problems, some developers and webmasters choose to utilize standalone SEO solutions. Ultimately, each choice and solution deployed as a standalone option will more effectively address the problem in question. Most SEO plugins are designed to be end-all, be-all solutions: this means that sacrifices must be made in multiple areas in order to have a harmonized, useful add-on.

Standalone SEO operations may prove more useful at pinging to Google appropriate links, metadata and/or transmitting to search engines valuable indicators that ensure your pages are viewed as trustworthy and authoritative. While the time and money spent on developing such endeavors is often more substantial, the benefits you’ll derive from doing so are usually greater as well.

In the end, SEO plugins and add-ons can be a valuable commodity for SEO beginners. However, those who are more versed in the broader topic may find that their usage can create conflicts, problems, bugs and other inadequacies that harm their long-term goals. Consider these benefits and drawbacks carefully before deciding which option is best for your website.