Hi @cytkevin,
Thanks for bringing this up. There’s a heavy debate going on about which plugin ranks better, and the answer is “neither”. The plugins can help make or break your website through their feature sets (or bugs…); but, overall, –when configured correctly– they contribute little to ranking on their own.
This doesn’t mean that the plugins aren’t a necessity (they are*), but that when you compare them to each other, you’ll find little SEO performance difference.
(* WordPress doesn’t bring the customization you need for SEO and social sharing.)
Both plugins help you set meta tags which search engines and social sites understand. It even goes so far that you can configure them to do exactly the same.
The main difference between the plugins is in the admin interface. Also, there are various premium options which I won’t dive into. As an aside, TSF does a little more with rich data whereas Yoast SEO does more in content optimization guidance.
To help you understand your findings, I took a small sample of your sites (acquired via your profile and your previous support question) and performed a quick inspection.
What I found is that the site with TSF running:
- is fairly new. Give a site at least two years to rank on its own;
- has fewer backlinks (mainly because it’s newer). Backlinks are key to ranking;
- is on a different subject and in a different market. This means that the sites aren’t competing and can’t be easily compared in terms of ranking.
The gist is that there are over a hundred ranking factors, and the plugins only contribute to a few.
Ultimately, it comes down to your preference.
To metaphorize:
Content is king, UX is queen, WordPress is the castle, and SEO plugins are the red carpet.
When your king and queen are beloved, the carpet may just as well be absent. So long as the castle doesn’t collapse; because that’ll be a bad day.
