SEOs love to debate over
which web browser is best for SEO.
We fill up forums and blogs with our opinions about which browser we think makes SEO work easiest, but our reasons are usually either subjective, hard to verify, or just that . . . opinions.
We decided to investigate some of the claims that SEOs make about which browser is the best SEO tool. Our goal was to find out if any facts exist to back up those opinions.
If you’ve been looking for information about SEO and web browsers that offers more than an opinion, we think you’ll find this post helpful.
Google Chrome vs. Mozilla Firefox for SEO
If you do a search on this topic, you will find that the debate over SEO browser preference almost always boils down to a faceoff between Chrome and Firefox.
Most other browsers don’t even make it into the finals when it comes to SEO.
This may be simply because
browser usage statistics show that Chrome and Firefox are the two most commonly used web browsers.
The majority of SEOs seem to prefer Firefox. Shout-outs in preference of Firefox outnumber shout-outs for Chrome.
- Firefox supporters usually claim that Mozilla has more and better add-ons for SEO.
However, a handful of SEOs swear by Chrome.
- Most say they prefer Chrome because, as they claim, Chrome is faster than Mozilla.
But are these claims true? Does Firefox really have the most and best add-ons? Is Chrome really faster than Firefox? And (most importantly, perhaps) how do we know?
Is Chrome Really Faster Than Firefox?
Because of Chrome’s “stripped down” code, it gained a reputation for speed when it first launched. Most users experienced this speed boost using Chrome with few or no extensions running.
Chrome’s reputation for speed may have been true in the past, but it turns out that the playing field is getting more level across all browsers.
These days, each browser has its own speed advantages, and Firefox outperforms Chrome in some areas.
For more information on browser speeds, check out this great article that covers
which browser is the fastest.
Which Browser Has the Best SEO Plugins?
Chrome calls them extensions. Firefox calls them add-ons. SEOs call them indispensable.
But does Firefox really have more SEO add-ons than Chrome has extensions?
Again, this is another area without a clear winner. We did our own search on a long list of popular SEO add-ons that most SEOs can’t go without. We discovered that most SEO add-ons are available on both browsers, including SEOQuake, IE Tab and SenSEO.
Even plugins that bear part of Firefox’s name -- such as Firebug and Flagfox -- are also available on Chrome.
Something We Can Measure: User Reviews
So is there anything that tips the scales in this debate? Is there anything we can measure that tells us one browser is better than another?
We think the answers to these questions lie in user review ratings.
User review ratings on browser add-ons can tell us a lot about which add-ons perform better on one browser or another.
We checked out user ratings for more than 20 top SEO add-ons for both Chrome and Firefox. SEO add-ons for Firefox received better overall ratings than extensions for Chrome.
This makes sense since most Firefox add-ons have been around longer than Chrome extensions have been. This has given Firefox add-ons more time to work out their bugs and receive more community support.
Given more time, user ratings for Chrome extensions might catch up with the ratings for Firefox add-ons, but at the moment, Firefox wins this one.
Conclusion
Based on our investigation, the old arguments for why Firefox might be a better SEO tool than Chrome (or vice versa) don’t hold water anymore.
Here and
ShipleySEO, the performance of Firefox add-ons is just one of the reasons why we think Firefox is the best browser for SEO. We also think Firefox is more intuitive and easy to use than Chrome, but that, of course, is just an opinion.
If you found this post helpful, share it with someone you know or comment below. Maybe tell us which browser you think is best for SEO and why.
