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
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
-
Google is indexing bad URLS
Hi All, The site I am working on is built on Wordpress. The plugin Revolution Slider was downloaded. While no longer utilized, it still remained on the site for some time. This plugin began creating hundreds of URLs containing nothing but code on the page. I noticed these URLs were being indexed by Google. The URLs follow the structure: www.mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/templates/this-part-changes/ I have done the following to prevent these URLs from being created & indexed: 1. Added a directive in my Htaccess to 404 all of these URLs 2. Blocked /wp-content/uploads/revslider/ in my robots.txt 3. Manually de-inedex each URL using the GSC tool 4. Deleted the plugin However, new URLs still appear in Google's index, despite being blocked by robots.txt and resolving to a 404. Can anyone suggest any next steps? I Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
How to know which pages are indexed by Google?
So apparently we have some sites that are just duplicates of our original main site but aiming at different markets/cities. They have completely different urls but are the same content as our main site with different market/city changed. How do I know for sure which ones are indexed. I enter the url into Google and its not there. Even if I put in " around " it. Is there another way to query google for my site? Is there a website that will tell you which ones are indexed? This is probably a dumb question.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Supplementary Index
Hi - Is there a way of checking whether pages are in the supplementary index? Thanks
Technical SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Removing some of the indexed pages from my website
I am planning to remove some of the webpages from my website and these webpages are already indexed with search engine. Is there any way by which I need to inform search engine that these pages are no more available.
Technical SEO | | ArtiKalra0 -
Duplicate content issue index.html vs non index.html
Hi I have an issue. In my client's profile, I found that the "index.html" are mostly authoritative than non "index.html", and I found that www. version is more authoritative than non www. The problem is that I find the opposite situation where non "index.html" are more authoritative than "index.html" or non www more authoritative than www. My logic would tell me to still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html". Am I right? and in the case I find the opposite happening, does it matter if I still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html"? The same question for www vs non www versions? Thank you
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
What is a fast Wordpress Host?
I have 8 or so sites hosted with Dreamhost and my main web site (http://www.nwrafting.com) is a Wordpress site hosted there as well. I'd like to move it to another hosts so that it isn't seen as related to my other sites that link to it. My other sites are good informational sites (example: http://www.caliriver.com) and are not doorway pages, but they do provide good links to my main business. This is a good idea to move my main sight, right? If so, can someone recommend a good host for me to put my one Wordpress site on? I'm looking for something that will load my pages fast. Please don't send me an affiliate link - I want to choose the best host not the one that pays the biggest commission. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | nwrafting0 -
New Ecom Category
Hello, I'd like to create a new category for my store. All products will be from other categories, no new products will be added. So this is really content that is already on my site. I will add cateogry specific text in this page with unique title, etc. But the products are all already on my site.Is this duplicate content, will this be a bad move? Thanks
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0