Index or Noindex Wordpress Categories?
-
I've read a few different opinions on this, but I'm still unclear as to the best practice. I use my categories more like tags. Let's say I write a post about about seo, local marketing, and indexing. I would use the categories "seo"+"marketing"+"indexing". Therefore, that same post will show up in all three category pages. If these category pages are all set to be indexed, what impact does that have on my post being indexed? Should I noindex all of the categories except for the main ones to avoid too much duplicate content? Or do you recommend noindexing all of the categories? I know some seo plugins make this easy to do (I'm using Yoast).
The only reason I'm hesitant to noindex all categories is because some of them rank well for their subject. I also already tried noindexing about a month ago and lost a lot of blog traffic, so I reversed it. Now some of my category pages have overtaken my post rankings, which makes it harder for the reader to find the content, but my overall blog traffic is back up.
With my situation, what is the best thing to do long term? I just started using my blog a lot more so I want to know that I have it setup correctly. Thanks in advance!
-
Correct! I show a teaser preview from the actual content on the homepage. The excerpt I write as a brief summary of what the article is about. Best of luck!
-
Well I've been wanting to redesign my main blog page anyways - make it slightly different from the category and archive pages, so if it'll help I'll do it.
Just to clarify, how does your blog homepage differ from the category pages? No excerpts on the homepage?
-
You don't have to do what I did. I have websites that don't do this, and they are just fine.
I'm not sure what your current setup is, but if it's not a lot of work for you, it's definitely worthwhile to do my method. It won't make or break you, but it'll help for sure.
-
Thanks for your quick response. So are you saying I should only have the excerpts on category pages? Right now I have them on the main blog page and category pages. On your main blog do you just have title links/pictures?
And I'm glad to finally hear that category pages should remain indexed from someone.
-
I've never understood the argument that category pages should be noindexed. They have always been an excellent source of traffic for me, too.
It's said that it could be considered low quality content. If you treat your category pages as just another page in your website (a healthy category introduction/description does wonders) it can be a nexus for broad search terms.
As an example of where this works very well, I have one category in a computer networking blog I have about TCP/IP. It's part of a series that explains the protocol, and the category page essentially is the 'guide' page, linking to each step in the guide to learning TCP/IP. I have the excerpts used only in category pages, so each category page also has unique preview content for each post.
Your specific worry is that you have posts in multiple categories. The thing is, there won't be the same posts in every category page so there will be a mashup of content. Some duplicate content is not bad. In addition to the category description, you'll be fine so long as you don't have synonymous categories.
You're fine in keeping them indexed. I would think you are crazy if you did otherwise
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
-
Indexing Issue
Hi, We have moved one of our domain https://www.mycity4kids.com/ in angular js and after that, i observed the major drop in the number of indexed pages. I crosschecked the coding and other important parameters but didn't find any major issue. What could be the reason behind the drop?
Technical SEO | | ResultFirst0 -
I have a Category and Tag In My Blogs
I have use category and Tags in my blogs. Now i have an problem with blog URL and Tags URL. My blog URLs is also show in Tags page and both the content is same. For Example: My Blog URL is: https://www.example.com/advice-how-to-do-batting And Tag Page URL is : https://www.example.com/advice-batting in that - https://www.example.com/advice-how-to-do-batting The URLs contain same content. No should i write two different meta title and description for above two URLs pages. As there might more blog added under Tags pages with different topics and title. Request on Thought Please.
Technical SEO | | ProcessSEO0 -
Site not indexed after 1 month
Hi people, I have been working on this new website for a month now and it has still not been indexed, here is a link: http://bit.ly/HNgzKG Can any of you spot anything wrong with it? I have tried submitting and also submitted an xml sitemap but still no joy.
Technical SEO | | Eavesy0 -
Wordpress: Should your blog posts be noindex?
Wordpress defaults all blog posts to no index/nofollow Is this how it should be handled? I understand the nofollow from the page.com/blog to the page.com/blog/blogtitle But why noindex? We have Yoast installed and this is the default.
Technical SEO | | cschwartzel0 -
CDN Being Crawled and Indexed by Google
I'm doing a SEO site audit, and I've discovered that the site uses a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that's being crawled and indexed by Google. There are two sub-domains from the CDN that are being crawled and indexed. A small number of organic search visitors have come through these two sub domains. So the CDN based content is out-ranking the root domain, in a small number of cases. It's a huge duplicate content issue (tens of thousands of URLs being crawled) - what's the best way to prevent the crawling and indexing of a CDN like this? Exclude via robots.txt? Additionally, the use of relative canonical tags (instead of absolute) appear to be contributing to this problem as well. As I understand it, these canonical tags are telling the SEs that each sub domain is the "home" of the content/URL. Thanks! Scott
Technical SEO | | Scott-Thomas0 -
Why I am a seeing an error for duplicate content for any categories and tags on my Wordpress blog?
When I look under "Crawl Diagnostics" I see I have 12 errors for duplicate content and there are all from tags and categories. I am assuming that search engines are reading the content in the tags and categories as duplicate. Should I set my categories to "no-index?"
Technical SEO | | brytewire0 -
What is the best permalink structure for WordPress?
Hi, Does anyone have practical knowledge of the best permalink structure to use in WordPress? I have seen recommendations for just the post name or category and post name and then some who suggest having 3 digits as part of the structure for pick up in Google news. I am left a little confused - does anyone have practical experience of the best structure please?
Technical SEO | | Wallander0 -
Getting images indexed in the SERPS
Good Afternoon form 13 degrees C totally Sunny Wetherby UK 🙂 Am i right in thinking that the only way to get images appearing like this in your serps: http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/innovia-merchant-immages-serpscopy.jpg is to be hooked up to Google Merchant? Which kind of means if the sight your working on has no images then this type of enhancement is out of bounds? Thanks in advance, David
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0