Are tags an issue in SEO
-
SEOMoz saw that my tags were duplicate pages. Are tags a serious issue in SEO? Should I remove it entirely to prevent the duplicate pages?
-
Yep, I think nofollow definitely makes sense sometimes. But if you have a short list of targeted tags and aren't creating dupe pages I think there is value in having those tag pages indexable. I see it as a way to easily create a page with focused content around a specific topic. If a site is using categories for that purpose then I definitely put nofollow on the tags, otherwise I use them sparingly.
-
Hi Kathryn,
I ran into the same problem a while back. I had multiple tags on posts that were redirecting to the same post with different URLs. As you said that creates a dup content issue.
I did exactly what John said to do, and it took care of the issue.
-Greg
-
The tags themselves aren't the issue, the result of using tags can be duplicate pages and that's what you want to avoid. If you have a tight list of tags and use them consistently they can be effective at creating content rich pages around a particular topic, and helping your visitors navigate your site. The problem arises when you use the same tags on all posts (thereby creating duplicate pages) or end up with a long list of tags, each one only showing 1-2 posts (again, ending up with many pages showing the same 1-2 posts). I like to predefine the list of tags I think will be useful and edit/add/delete as I go, versus coming up with tags each time I write new content. Kathryn
-
Your best bet is to "noindex,follow" your tag pages. There was a great article about this just a few days ago on the Moz blog:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success
The article covers tags, categories, author pages and more. You're sure to find what you're looking for.
-John
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
-
Alt Tags
Hi We have lots of alt tags missing, I know they'e recommended by Google, so moving forward we will ensure we add them to product images, but should we go back and update the ones we have missing? How important is it for SEO? Has anyone tested this? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Can the Alternate/hreflang tags harm SEO?
Hello, Recently one of my regional websites, targeted for Denmark (xxxx.dk (TLD)), received a manual penalty from Google, specified as “pure spam”. The reason for this (as I suspect) can be the fact that the Danish site’s content, is fully translated from English, on the main site (.com). To fix that problem with Google, I want to use the “alternate/hreflang” tags on both sites
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda
URL’s (the main and the regional), before submitting it for a second review on WMT. Following this, I would like to ask you few questions: 1. Is there any RISK in using alternate tags between two sites (a “healthy” site to the one that got the penalty), Can it harm the SEO of the main site (.com)?
2. Once done, Will it resolve my problem with Google? Will they remove the manual penalty?
3. Based on your experience, would you recommend me to rewrite all the content on the Danish site, instead of just translating it (the current status)? Would love to hear your opinion on those issues. Thanks a lot!0 -
301 issues
Hi, I have this site: www.berenjifamilylaw.com. We did a 301 from the old site: www.bestfamilylawattorney.com to the one above. It's been several weeks now and Google has indexed the new site, but still pulls the old one on search terms like: Los Angeles divorce lawyer. I'm curious, does anyone have experience with this? How long does it take for Google to remove the old site and start serving the new one as a search result? Any ideas or tips would be appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
SEO Site Analysis
I am looking for a company doing a SEO analysis on our website www.interelectronix.com and write a optimization proposal incl. a budgetary quote for performing those optimizations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | interelectronix0 -
How does the use of Dynamic meta tags effect SEO?
I'm evaluating a new client site which was built buy another design firm. My question is they are dynamically creating meta tags and I'm concerned that it is hurting their SEO. When I view the page source this is what I see. <meta name="<a class="attribute-value">keywords</a>" id="<a class="attribute-value">keywordsGoHere</a>" content="" /> <meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" id="<a class="attribute-value">descriptionGoesHere</a>" content="" /> <title id="<a class="attribute-value">titleGoesHere</a>">title> To me it looks like the tags are not being added to the page, however the title is showing when you view it in a browser and if use a spider view tool, it sees the title. I'm guess it is being called from a DB. So I'm a little concerned though that the search engines are not really seeing the title and description. I'm not worried about the keywords tag. Can anyone shed some light on how this might work? Why it might not being showing the text for the description in the page code and if that will hurt SEO? Thanks for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BbeS0 -
Issue: Rel Canonical
seomoz give me notices about rel canonical issues, how can i resolve it. any one can help me, what is rel canonical and how can i remove it
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | learningall0 -
Read More & SEO
I have just had my site redesigned. The site was designed with only important facts bullets at the top of the page and all other information is below in the read more section that expands when clicked. I am wondering if I need to have this information in the read more section visible to the customer or if having the majority of the text in the read more is OK? and how it will effect rankings having it this way? I have had spots #1 &2 on Google for my keywords- until the site was redesigned...wondering if this was part of the reason. I have moved some of the text up to be visible on some of the pages - but it makes the site look cramped - and competes with the ease of use the site design Any insight on this is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cheri110 -
Does capitalization matter for SEO?
Two places capitalization comes into play: (1) on-page use (title, h1, body text, img alt text, etc) (2) external anchor text I didn't think it mattered from Google's point of view for on-page usage (is this correct?) but I notice that OpenSiteExplorer' s 'anchor text distribution' tab shows different counts for the same keyword if it's capitalized in different ways (eg seomoz.org is listed separate from SEOmoz.org). Is that just OSE or does Google treat the keyword/phrase different based on its capitalization, too? And if so, then should I be creating external links to my site with the 'regular' and 'Capitalized' versions of my key phrases?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scanlin1