Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?
-
I am new to SEOmoz & trying to work my way through the ca-trillion errors that have been found on my site, but for each one I want to ensure that I am helping rather than harming my site.
The tool has (as a "notice") said that my category pages & Archives are NO-INDEX, is this how these pages should be dealt with?
In addition, the crawler has also (as a "warning error) discovered that my categories, and Archives do not have a meta description..is this of great importance for non indexed pages of this type?
Thanks so much to the SEOmoz forum members, you have so far been of invaluable help to me.
-
Hi all,
I think it is first important to look at your category structure. Use categories as main categories and tags as subcategories. If you have 1 post, in 5 different main categories, you will then be duplicated in some cases the same info. I keep all my posts in one main category which I do index and then all the subcategories as (tags) which I have no-index on. Also, Yoast SEO is my favorite plugin. Just plain easy to use.
-
with hindsight I should have redesigned the blog pages to convert. The potential spend of the lost traffic was not harnessed
-
Wow, I'm chiming in almost three years later, but I think my question is pertinent. When you stopped indexing your category pages...did sales "happen" on your main website? I ask because you wrote that sales don't happen on your blog. I'm just wondering why sales are not happening on your blog and if it's a matter of funneling or the lack thereof?
-
my blog category pages began to rank higher for key converting search terms than my main website - not good - sales dont happen on my blog.
So I stopped the indexing of my category pages....guess what happened?..my website is back to position 1 BUT my blog traffic reduced by half.....so consider EGOL's warning prior to making a decision
-
Most of the search engine traffic that enters my blog comes in through category pages. It would be a huge mistake for me to block them. However, depending upon the topic area of your site the category pages might have a different importance.
-
Thank you very much for your answer.
I do have the all in one plugin installed, and my excerpts are not originally written, but taken from the articles so i will leave it no index.
Thanks again!
-
Hey Kevin,
Welcome to SEOmoz!
Since you are running a Wordpress set-up I would recommend downloading the All-in-one SEO plug-in. It's one of the most popular plugins for Wordpress installs because it helps you with your SEO configuration. Chances are you've probably already got this installed but I figured I would mention it in any case.
As to the no-index configuration of your category and archive pages; I would definitely recommend no-index on the archive pages because otherwise you run the risk of duplicate content, plus you don't really want those archive pages ranking for any of the keywords you are targeting.
For the category pages; if you are giving each post a unique excerpt and thus making the category pages unique in their own right, I would probably take the no-index tag off if only to aid link juice flow between categories and individual posts. If on the other hand you are not writing a unique excerpt for each post and instead showing the whole post or a modified version of the original, you run the risk of duplicating your content and this will greatly impact your ability to rank for the terms you are trying to target. In this case, keep the setup as it is.
Hope these points help.
Best,
Anthony
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 better to keep a glossary or terms on one page or break it up into multiple pages?
We have a very large glossary of over 1000 industry terms on our site with links to reference material, embedded video, etc. Is it better for SEO purposes to keep this on one page or should we break it up into multiple pages, a different page for each letter for example? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | KenW0 -
URL Structure Category Pages -Current Moz Friday-
Hello,
On-Page Optimization | | _Heiko_
regarding #15 of the last moz friday I have a question: http://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls What would you prefer if the lenght of the URL will be still under 60 characters and you have an example like this: Let's call it a specific page in a category. As I like the old shoe examples: You have a page about red shoes in your shoe category. Which URL would you prefer: a) www.mydomain.com/shoes/red-shoe b) www.mydomain.com/shoes/red Personally I would prefer a) or would you already consider this as spammy? My real example is not that trivial like the shoe example and the categories will be in plural and the specific pages always in singular (like in the example shoes vs shoe). c) would be to put it independently from the side structure on www.mydomain.com/red-shoe - but personally I have the experience that a) or b) will help the rankings of the category page if you have the specific pages in the same subfolder. What's your opinion on this?1 -
Creative ways to dramatically increase content on ecommerce category pages?
I need to signficantly boost the content on the category pages on my ecommerce website. Currently, they're pretty thin, with some only having approx 50 words of unique content. In the past, I've intentionally kept the content on these pages quite light, to keep the aesthetic a certain way. It's a fashion-based site, so it's very much about the visual. However, with the introduction of Panda, I need to change this mindset. But, there must be slightly more creative ways to boost the content to stop the pages looking too text heavy. I'm not talking hidden text or anything, but ways to break it up in different blocks on the page to make it look natural/relevant, while keeping it looking great. Anyone have any good ideas? Or, any links to ecommerce sites that have employed brilliant methods?
On-Page Optimization | | Coraltoes770 -
Too many on page links
Hello, I have a page that isn't ranking very well. http://nicontrols.com/uk/drives-motors/variable-speed-drives According to the MOZ research tools I have too many on page links. I believe most of these are a result of the advanced filtration options on the left hand side of the page. I don't want to remove the filters as they are extremely useful for customers but I am also worried about the number of links Anyone get any ideas about the number of links? Should I care?
On-Page Optimization | | DavidLenehan0 -
Different pages for OS's vs 1 Page with Dynamic Content (user agent), what's the right approach?
We are creating a new homepage and the product are at different stages of development for different OS's. The value prop/messaging/some target keywords will be different for the various OS's for that reason. Question is, for SEO reasons, is it better to separate them into different pages or use 1 page and flip different content in based on the user agent?
On-Page Optimization | | JoeLin0 -
Got loads of pages, but none indexing?
I have a WordPress site with loads of pages on a url like this http://mysite.com.au However, Google has indexed http://www.mysite.com.au and as a result only indexing 2 pages. How do I fix this? Many thanks Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Pokodot0 -
SEO Value of Within-Page Links vs. Separate Pages
Title says it all. Assuming that you're talking about similar content (let's say, widgets), which is better: using within-page links for variations or using separate pages? I.e., do we have a widget page and then do in-page links to describe green, blue, and red widgets, or separate pages for each type of widget? In-page pro: more content on a single page, thus more keywords, key phrases, and general appearance of real content. In-page con: Jakob Neilsen says they're confusing. Also, for SEO, you only get one page title, rather than a separate page title for each. My personal bias is for in-page, since I hate creating dozens of short pages for what could be on one page, but my suspicion is that separate pages are better for SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | maxkennerly0 -
Too many on-page links
I manualy counted the links on my website http://www.commensus.com which came to around 50, but SEO moz says I have over 100 and google isn't seeing them all.
On-Page Optimization | | jawl44630