undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. On-Page Optimization
  4. Category pages, should I noindex them?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Category pages, should I noindex them?

On-Page Optimization
5
5
11.2k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • lucywrites
    lucywrites last edited by May 6, 2018, 7:40 AM

    Hi there,

    I have a question about my blog that I hope you guys can answer. Should I no index the category and tag pages of my blog? I understand they are considered as duplicate content, but what if I try to work the keyword of that category?

    What would you do? I am looking forward to reading your answers 🙂

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Mat_C
      Mat_C Subscriber @EGOL last edited by Apr 1, 2019, 1:03 PM Apr 1, 2019, 1:03 PM

      Hi,

      I am using category pages on my blog, but what to do with a view all page of all the articles?

      Example: articles 1-10 are in category A, articles 11-20 in category B and articles 21-30 in category C. But there is also a view all category page with articles 1-30.

      Should I 'noindex' this page (although this isn't really duplicate content since the articles per page are not the same as in the separate categories) or can I just let it be indexed?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,11 months
      • Roman-Delcarmen
        Roman-Delcarmen last edited by May 7, 2018, 6:11 PM May 7, 2018, 6:11 PM

        I'm Agree with EGOL

        Taxonomies: Categories and Tags

        Implementing categories and tags on your website is an important way to add structure to it. These taxonomies group content on a certain topic. When used properly, Google will understand the structure of your site better.

        Categories have a hierarchical structure. There can be subcategories within categories. Tags do not have a hierarchical structure. Think of it like this: categories are the table of contents of your website, and tags are the index.

        Duplicate content

        Duplicate content means that the same content is shown in multiple locations on your site. As a reader, you don’t mind: you’ll get the content you came for. But it confuses a search engine: it has to pick which one to show in the search results, as it doesn’t want to show the same content twice.

        Above that, when other websites link to your product, chances are some of them link to the first URL, and others link to the second URL. If these duplicates were all linking to the same URL, your chance of ranking in the top 10 for the relevant keyword would be much higher.

        The solution for duplicate content is a so-called canonical link. A canonical link tells the search engines: yes, this content is duplicate, and this one is the original content.

        Structure of your website...why? The importance of site structure for SEO
        The structure of a website or a blog is of great importance for its chances to rank in search engines. In my opinion, there are two main reasons for this:

        1 - A decent structure makes sure Google ‘understands’ your site.

        The way your website is structured will give Google important clues about where to find the most important content. Your site’s structure determines whether a search engine can understand what your site is about, and how easily it will find and index the content relevant to your site’s purpose and intent. A good structure could, therefore, lead to a higher ranking in Google.

        2 - A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.

        On your site, you will probably write multiple pages about similar topics. Let's take an example you have a recipes website and you want to create a structure for your website. So you several recipes on your website and you have several categories such as Italian recipes, French recipes, Mexican recipes and so on. On the other hand, your tags can be used in another approach such as breakfast, dinner, lunch, low cab ect on this way you do not compete with your own content resulting in higher rankings.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • EGOL
          EGOL last edited by May 6, 2018, 1:18 PM May 6, 2018, 1:18 PM

          I believe that you can get rid of tags and archives in most situations.  However, good use can often be made of categories, author and pagination.

          Let's imagine that you have a website or a blog (there is no difference) about "Widgets".  Every time you find a new widget you photograph it and write a post with substantive content about it.  You are a widget expert and know an awful lot about them.  Widgets are a popular collectable and lots of people are interested in them.  So you start your blog (or website) and publish posts (or pages) about two or three different widgets every week.

          You realize that there are different types of widgets based upon what they are made from and everybody knows about this.  Lots of people search for wooden widgets, brass widgets, copper widgets, plastic widgets,etc.  So you make these the categories of your blog (or website) and all of the post about wooden widgets are posted to the "wooden widgets" category page.  Same for "copper widgets" and "brass widgets" etc.

          Your post pages display the full size photo and everything that you had to say about that widget.  Your category pages display a small photo of the widget and the first paragraph of your article.  Soon, you have posts about 10 brass widgets, 12 wooden widgets, and 22 plastic widgets and those category pages are starting to look healthy.  They might start ranking for in the SERPs for keywords like "plastic widgets" and "brass widgets" and pull in more traffic than all of your posts combined.

          After you have about 20 post showing on a category page you might start using pagination to keep that category page from being enormous.  Then when people read to the bottom they see a link for "earlier posts" and click it.  That takes them to the older posts for this topic and you get more ad impressions.  Now the pagination pages have become valuable.

          Your author page might have some bio information about you, noting that you are the president of the Ohio Widget Collecting Society and are a professor of design at a college, where you teach a course on the History of Widgets in America.   You can construct the author page to display your bio and credentials information at the top, your most recent ten posts below that, and your most popular posts below that.  Author pages are valuable because people want to know about you.  Google wants to know about you too because they want to determine if you are a credible author for "widgets".

          From experience I can say that category pages can pull in a LOT of traffic, and a REALLY LOT of traffic if you rank well and the topic of your page is heavily searched.  Your author page can help people to decide to link to you, invite you to speak at a convention, ask you to teach a course at a local university, Google might use information from your author page to decide that you deserve better rankings than other authors who post prattle about widgets.  And, your pagination pages can make a lot of extra ad impressions.

          So, carefully consider the potential category pages that fit your blog, try to find keywords that are logical fits, optimize those pages to rank for heavily searched queries.  Wordpress gave you lots of options.  Decide how you can use them in a planned way for visitors, searchers, and your own goals.

          Good luck.

          Mat_C 1 Reply Last reply Apr 1, 2019, 1:03 PM Reply Quote 5
          • elenaglop
            elenaglop last edited by May 6, 2018, 7:50 AM May 6, 2018, 7:48 AM

            Hola Lucía,

            I strongly recommend you to noindex the category and tag pages of your blog. As you say they are considered duplicate content and it is usually very complicated to work that keywords. In fact if I where you I would mark as noindex the following: categories, tags, author, archives and even the pagination of the blog.

            I hope this helps! 🙂

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
            • 1 / 1
            1 out of 5
            • First post
              1/5
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • shinawebnavid

              Page Optimization Error

              Hi, I am trying to track a page optimization feature for one of my project, https://shinaweb.com but i keep getting this below error: "PAGE OPTIMIZATION ERROR
              There was a problem loading this page. Please make sure the page is loading properly and that our user-agent, rogerbot, is not blocked from accessing this page." I checked robots.txt file, it all looks fine. Not sure what is the problem? Is it a problem with Moz or the website?

              On-Page Optimization | Jan 15, 2024, 4:47 AM | shinawebnavid
              0
            • GOMO-Gabriel

              Shifting target keyword to a new page, how do we rank the internal page?

              I have been targeting one keyword for home page that was ranking between the postilion 6-7 but was never ranking on 1st as there were 2 highly competitive keywords targeted on the same page, I changed the keyword to an internal service page to rank it on 1st, I have optimized the content as well but the home page is still ranking on 11th, how do I get the internal page rank on that keyword

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 12, 2019, 10:51 AM | GOMO-Gabriel
              0
            • OrlandSEO

              FAQ page structure

              I have read in other discussions that having all questions on an FAQ page is the way to go and then if the question has an answer worthy of its own page, you should abbreviate the answer and link to the page with more content. My question is when using some templates in WP, they have a little + button you can click and it reveal the answer to the question. Does this hurt SEO versus having all text visible and then using headers/subheaders? An example of the + button https://fyrfyret.dk/faq/

              On-Page Optimization | Dec 29, 2017, 6:25 AM | OrlandSEO
              1
            • viatrading1

              URL Structure on Category Pages

              Hi, Currently, we having the following URL Structure o our product pages: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/283/All_Products.html Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/4/Clothing.html Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/product/LOAD-HE-WOM/Assorted-High-End-Women-Clothing-Lots.html?cid=4 Since we are going to use another frontend system, we are thinking about re-working on this URL Structure, using something like this: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/ Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/product-title/ I understand this is better for SEO and user experience. However, we already have good traffic on the current URL Structure. Should we use same left-side filters on Category Pages as in All Products Page? Since we are using Faceted Navigation, when users filter the Category (e.g. Clothing) they will see same page as Clothing Category Page. Is that an issue for Duplicate Content? Since we are a wholesale company - I understand is using "/wholesale/products/" in URL for all product pages a good idea? If so, should we avoid word "wholesale" in product-title to avoid repeated word in URL? For us, SKU in URL helps the company employees and maybe some clients identify the link. However, what do you think of using the SEO-friendly product-title, and 301 redirect it to www.viatrading.com/BRTA-LN-DISHRACKS/, so 1st link is only used by company members and Canonicalized 2nd is the only one seen by general public? Thank you,

              On-Page Optimization | Jan 9, 2017, 9:35 PM | viatrading1
              0
            • ZaddleMarketing

              Punctuation at the Start of Page Titles

              one of my clients appears to be using an exclamation mark (e.g. "! Graphic Prints By Mirrorin - Fun Childrens Graphic Prints") and to be completely honest, I have no idea if this is bad practice or if it wont have any affect from an SEO point of view? Any help would be appreciated because it is site wide, therefore if it is an issue I would like to be able to get it sorted asap! Thanks

              On-Page Optimization | Jul 26, 2013, 10:01 AM | ZaddleMarketing
              0
            • mihaiaperghis

              WordPress and category/subcategory landing pages

              Hey, Here's my situation. I'm building a WordPress blog for product reviews of a certain niche. Current category setup is 4 main categories with 4-8 subcategories each. Each subcategory has a unique description that will help it become a landing page for certain keywords, after which it lists the posts from that subcategory. The posts will always be assigned to a sub-category, never to a main category. My issue is what to do with the main categories. They're fairly general so they're not really targeting any keywords, and don't have any unique descriptions attached to them. I was thinking of choosing between three options on designing the main category pages: List the subcategories + normal posts loop that bring the latest posts from the subcategories (may create a lot of duplicate content since the subcategory pages are also listing their posts) List only the subcategories (+ maybe just the latest post from each subcategory) Don't link the main categories at all, instead only use them to create dropdowns for the subcategories So, what would you choose, and why?

              On-Page Optimization | Mar 11, 2013, 2:45 PM | mihaiaperghis
              0
            • MeghanPrudencio

              Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?

              Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy

              On-Page Optimization | Mar 8, 2011, 9:32 PM | MeghanPrudencio
              0
            • smaavie

              Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?

              We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
              Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
              Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
              find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
              find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards

              On-Page Optimization | Jun 2, 2013, 5:08 PM | smaavie
              5

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.