Moz Crawl Test: WordPress sites with and without /feed and /trackback entires?
-
I have multiple WP websites and on some of the websites, on my Moz Crawl test, I see an entry for every blog post but also entries for /feed and /trackback for that single blog post. For example,
www...com/someArticle
www....com/someArticle/feed
www...com/someArticle/trackback
1. Can anyone explain why the Crawl test is picking up the /feed and /trackback items? Is it simply because they are 301 redirects to the original post (www...com/someArticle)?
2. What setting(s) in WordPress are making this information appear? Or is it just that the site(s) that have the /feed and /trackback are displaying "normal" behavior for a WP site with a lot of trackbacks and feed entires?
3. Should /fee and /trackback, as well as /author be blocked in robots.txt?
Thanks in advance for your advice and input!
-
I have the same issue but instead of it redirecting to the parent post its just going to a 404 page.
-
So I solved the problem (or at least figured where it was coming from). On this particular site, under the comments area, there is a link for "trackback url" and a link for "comments rss feed". Naturally these are ../trackback and ../blog so that's why the crawl is picking them up. They are 301 redirected to the "parent" page so that's why they are not a duplicate content issue. Thank to everyone for their help!
-
1. If you check the source code of your blog posts, there must be some sort of link to the feeds - possibly even in the header. I'm not 100% on how the Moz crawler operates (if it only spiders <a>anchor links or if it spiders referenced links in the header - pretty sure the latter) - but either way that's how they're finding it, through some sort of link on the page.</a>
<a>You could try running a crawl with Screaming Frog SEO Spider and see if it also picks up the feed URLs and Screaming Frog will show you where it found the links as well.
2. Good question. Your theme may be displaying links to these things somewhere - the best way to find out is to crawl with Screaming Frog and it will show you which pages link to your feed and trackback URLs. Then if you don't need them, you can go into the editor and remove them from the code.
3. I agree with Thomas here, I would not block them with robots.txt - rather I would see if you can fix them at the source and remove the links if they are not needed.
-Dan</a>
-
Thanks, I'll check it out!
-
Hi, you should never block feeds they're really pretty beneficial to your site. Take a look at this from Joost it will explain it much better than I can
http://yoast.com/example-robots-txt-wordpress/
All the best sincerely, Thomas
-
Thank you.
When you say "TrackBacks are from people posting either identical or similar content to WordPress.com", what do you mean? I thought trackbacks were notifications of links back when someone links to your content?
And why does the codex recommend blocking feeds and trackbacks in robots.txt?
Thanks again!
-
the TrackBacks are from people posting either identical or similar content to WordPress.com I would follow up with that. unless that person is you.
No do not block a feed with robots.txt and do not block the TrackBacks use automatics Digital millennium act takedown if somebody is stealing your content.
Sincerely,
Thomas
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
-
Understanding Moz Opportunity and Potential
Hello Friends - I am just learning Moz tool via Udacity I was doing some analysis using Moz for the following keyword "digital marketing courses" This is the result what I get. Moz tells me the opportunity is 83. This is a high number and does not reflect what I see when I search in google. The page is full of ads. A organic click is going to be very difficult.
Moz Pro | | udacity-singhvishu
Moz potential also says 79 - again a high number which does not seem to be the reality. It is going to be very difficult for a new service to rank higher. I have fundamental doubt on whether SEO will work on keywords which are in high demand by paid ads. more that 30% of the real estate on screen gets taken by paid ads. Even if one searches for long tail key word the story remains same. Does SEO really have a chance to compete with paid ads for business driving keywords? pub0 -
SEO Crawl Report Images?
Does SEOMOZ crawl images in the report? Raven tools is showing me about 200 missing alt tags and title tags. I can not seem to find any of this information on the SEOMOZ report. Am I missing something?
Moz Pro | | jasonsixtwo0 -
How can I get a report of the top 500 national sites using Domain Authority and Page Authority? Does someone have to type sites in one by one on Site Explorer or is there another way?
I want to know what sites and blogs have the to rankings overall based on their Domain Authority and Page Authority - Top 500 - 1000 in nation - I want to know which ones are follow and no-follow too - Does anyone know? Has anyone run such a report yet? Thanks for help - BD
Moz Pro | | creativeguy0 -
Http://dev.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
Hello. http://dev.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com seems to be hanging all the pages. Most pages will not load for me. Even your contact page will not load. The forum seems OK. Alan
Moz Pro | | loopyal0 -
Open site Explorer Findings??
On OSE, I am comparing two websites(A and B) and one has a page authority higher than the other (35(A) vs 36 (B)), but all the linking metrics are in favor for website A except for the linking C block (A has 11 and B has 12). The website B is ranked in page 1 for couple competitive keywords whereas the website A don't show up in the search at all. Why is that? Does B have better content and is more kw focused?
Moz Pro | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Moz points a difference in totals
I am not quite sure why this is happening but the Moz point s total on my logo when I hover over it is around 6 times more than the one on my main section. Can someone explain why ? Screen-Shot-2011-11-23-at-01.21.22.png
Moz Pro | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Crawling One Page
I set up a profile for a site with many pages, opting for setting up as a root directory. When SEOMoz crawled, they only found one page. Any ideas for why this would be? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | Group160 -
Excluding parameters from seomoz crawl?
I'm getting a ton of duplicate content errors because almost all of my pages feature a "print this page" link that adds the parameter "printable=Y" to the URL and displays a plain text version of the same page. Is there any way to exclude these pages from the crawl results?
Moz Pro | | AmericanOutlets0