How to handle wordpress tags
-
Hi fellow SEO mozzers,
I am getting 'duplicate content' errors when our site is crawled, mainly down to our WordPress blog and how we have handled tags. Currently, they are being crawled and as such are regarded as duplicate pages.
I have read several different articles on how to handle tags. Some suggest noindex the tag URL's.
Others suggest to optimize them and allow them to be indexed since Google has confirmed they won't penalize a WordPress site for having archive pages that publish and point to the same content. It will select the best link to represent the cluster of links.
Over the past few months, nearly 4% of our WordPress traffic have been referred by tag pages listed in search engines.
Initially I was going to noindex the tag pages, but going on the above info I wonder should I leave them as they are?
Or is the issue that having duplicate content will lead to inefficient crawling?
Any views/opinions on how best to handle this?
-
That's true, you can show excerpt which is better - but I believe ultimately the best bet is to noindex tags. Most people end up with hundreds or thousands of tag archives, all with just a few posts in them. If you're really good about using tag perfectly, it might work - but I think most sites benefit from noindexing them.
-
You can do this if you want to be really certain you won't hurt anything.
-
Hi Sarah,
SEOmoz had a mozinar on Advanced Wordpress and they mentioned on how to handle tag pages, category pages and duplicate content. I've added the attachment to the answer.
Basically can you simply go to the tag.php, archive.php, category.php files and change the the_content to the_excerpt then it should help with duplicate content. Whenever peopel visit the tag pages, instead of viewing the whole duplicate content there, they will only see an except and to read more, they will have to click on the post.
Hope this answers your question.
-
No, just noindex, follow them. Install the Yoast SEO plugin that will do the work for you with their presets.
-
The bounce rate isn't significantly higher than the site average and the time on site is similar to site average too...majority of the keywords are (not provided) so I can't see actual queries.
If I do decide to noindex tags, do I need to consider anything in the transition? like redirecting the tag pages that have been indexed to the equivalent post etc.?
-
Personally I noindex all my category and tags in WordPress as I don't think they offer the best way for people searching for information to enter my blog. That being said I always believe that i****f a page is of use to a searcher, then you should include it within the index.
I know you have said that you are getting 4% of your organic traffic via tag pages but what's the quality of these visitors, do they have a low bounce rate or better than average time on site?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it okay to leave off H1 tags?
I know that SEO uses H1 and H2 mainly and there should only be one H1 and there can be multiple H2 tags. But the site I’m reviewing generally has no H1 on a page and multiple H2 tags. The Page Title reflects the title of the page, so maybe this is okay as is? They have the styling down just so, so I don’t want to make them change it if it’s okay.
On-Page Optimization | | amybethmegjo0 -
What is the perfect way to handle multiple sitemaps index in Search Console?
Hello friends, I have this doubt for a long and i want to share it with you. In our agency many clients have a PHP template for the home page of their sites, and also have a blog with wordpress as CMS. When i am optimizing sitemaps, I have two separate files, an index of Sitemaps created with Wordpress SEO by Yoast (which inside has separate Sitemaps tags, categories, posts, pages, authors, etc.) and on the other hand the home page sitemap with the subsections. As you know the sitemap generated by "Wordpress SEO by Yoast" is dynamic as it creates the sitemap according to current site content, and is updated every time a new entry is raised or modify any URL. This makes it very practical. I can not have a unique index sitemap sitemaps nesting inside another, as it is not allowed by Google or Sitemap protocol. I read in the Google Support you can upload multiple sitemaps to Search Console but does not say anywhere on upload multiple sitemaps index, or a combination thereof. In my case, I would have to upload two separately files, the dynamically generated with wordpress and the manual created for the PHP template. In my opinion there is no problem and Google will index everything properly performing it this way, but I wanted to share it with you to see how you solve this problem and what experiences had. Thanks and best regards.
On-Page Optimization | | NachoRetta1 -
Thousands of 404's showing up from Wordpress Blog!?!?
Hey guys, Have recently seen thousands of 404 errors thrown up from my wordpress blog in Google Search Console. These are URL's trying to link (i'm not sure where from) to other parts of my site, but they are not relative to the site root... infact they are a mix of random folders/subfolders and pages on my site. E.g: http://www.MYSITE.co.uk/blog/how-to/driving-to-the-alps/attachment/2013-land-rover-range-rover-evoque-front-snow-1/st-martin-de-belleville/chalet-st-martin-de-belleville/ski-holidays/ski-holidays/summer/st-martin-de-belleville/summer/your-stay-st-martin-de-belleville.html This is a link to a picture on the blog: http://www.MYSITE.co.uk/blog/how-to/driving-to-the-alps/attachment/2013-land-rover-range-rover-evoque-front-snow-1/ And the rest of it is finding it's own way there! Any ideas? This is Wordpress by the way. Cheers, Paul. p.s. I got no help from the Wordpress community so am posting here! p.p.s I forgot to mention that MOZ is reporting these issues too, but running Screaming Frog does NOT show any 404's at all on my site...
On-Page Optimization | | SnowTrippin0 -
Should Title Tags Differ From H1's?
I never thought this was an issue, but now, I'm not so sure. Is it a problem for your title tags to be identical to your H1's? From Moz' OnPage Grader section on "H1's and Title Tags," I thought they were supposed to both match your keyword. Any thoughts? Thanks, Ruben
On-Page Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Category page canonical tag
I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson9
/range.html?p=3
/range.html?dir=asc&order=price
/range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.1 -
How to ALT tag correctly many similar images?
scenario: I have a product page with some text about the product and 12-15 different images af the product: details, colours, different views... how should I name an alt tag them correctly, been them actually really similar? Is it keyword stuffing to use the same name containing a relevant keywords?
On-Page Optimization | | DavideM0 -
Confused about meta tags.
(Ok, this might be a stupid question.) I am a little confused about the best practice for the Meta Tag. I know they don't have a real effect on ranking. But I am getting "mixed signals" as to their general use. I've pasted the 2 examples of below that are confusing me. From my Campaign's Crawl Diagnostics: (I have missing Meta Tags) "Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages (SERPs). These short paragraphs are the webmaster's opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know exactly what the given page has with regard to what they're looking for" From The Keyword Optimization Tool: (Avoid Using Meta Keyword Tool) "Search engines have, for years, ignored the meta keywords tag as a ranking signal. Although it technically does not harm rankings, it can be used by competitors as a method to extract your targeted terms and thus, we recommend against its use. " I would love to hear opinions on this topic. I am trying to decide wether or not to use unique meta tags on every blog post.
On-Page Optimization | | NerdsOnCall0 -
Nofollow tags
So on the homepage, should all the links like privacy, contact us, etc...be rel="nofollow" ? I want to get a better handle on passing as much link juice on homepage to important internal pages as I can, and want to get it right. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | azguy1