Wordpress: Tags generate duplicate Content - just delete the tags!?
-
Asking people, they say tags are bad and spamy and as I can see they generate all my duplicate page content issues.
So the big question is, why Google very often prefers to show in SERPS these Tag-URLS... so it can't be too bad! :)))?
Then after some research I found the "Term Optimizer" on Yoast.com ... that should help exactly with this problem but it seems not to be available anymore?
So may be there another plugin that can help... or just delete all tags from my blog? and install permanent redirects?
Is this the solution? -
I don't understand the question. Perhaps submit a new question to create a new thread, and elaborate on the issue.
-
It should take care of the duplicate content issue as it relates to tag pages, but not it will not show as a 404 because the page will still be there, just removed from Google's index.
If you adjusted the settings in Yoast it should apply to all future posts and tags.
-
My blog provides articles for technical queries and repair options. Almost many keywords does have the same sort of steps to define and we are into problems now..
CASE1: We have replaced the keywords and created the same content for all posts.
CASE2: To solve the above SEO loop hole, I have added these tags for relevant steps which follow the same troubleshooting.
Now again tags are bothering me.
What should I do for my work?
-
Hi,
I also have this problem with our site with 50 duplicate pages recorded on Moz, If I do a no index, follow on Yoast will it create 404's or will I only get a 404 if i remove the tags completely?
Also is there a way to set this up for all future blog posts on yoast or will I need to do this every time I submit a new post?
Thanks
Jeh
-
I said the same thing! I couldn't figure out why it wasn't the default either. We've had the blog up since before I worked for my current company, and so there were a bunch of duplicate pages I'm trying to fix now... frustrating!
Best of luck,
Tyler
-
Hi Tyler,
yes I ended up with the simple checking of the "noindex,follow" option for Tag within the YOAST Plugin (Taxonomies-Tab).
Now all the duplicate Content Issues are gone... so why is this option not set per default? hmmm
Thanks
Holger -
Hey!
I was just looking into this same issue for myself, and I figured I'd share the URL from Yoast that ended up answering most of my questions. It's in section 3, gives you some solutions to the duplicate page issue.
Hope this helps,
Tyler
-
Does that validate?
I'm no expert, but I think the trailing slash shouldn't be used with meta elements, except maybe if the declared DocType is XML or XHTML? If you do, leave a space just before it, like in your rel canonical line, for compatibility's sake (old stuff but just in case, it won't hurt).
And shouldn't it be a space between the comma and follow in "noindex, follow"?
-
Yes, thanks,
I'm curious ... and hope it works. and yes it looks fine...
<title>Christo | INLINEAR Digital Marketing & Brasilien Blog</title>
-
Yes, that happens sometimes, just make sure the plugin has implemented the tags correctly and that the head of your pages don't contain any other misplaced meta tags or invalid code, since this could cause the issue.
Then give it a try, it usually works, you'll have to wait until the site is re-crawled dough, so give it some time. Then, if it doesn't work, you could take more drastic measures.
Good luck, and follow Alan's advice of using 'no-index, follow' in your tag if you want to make sure of keeping the link flow.
-
Hi Branagan,
yes I can set noindex, follow in the yoast plugin, but this seems that google does not obey this metatag? See the comment of a User from a blog:
Peter Hinson October 25, 2012 at 7:22 am
Hi, I’ve been using the Yoasts SEO for years now, but unfortunately it does not prevent Google from indexing pagination all the time.
Matt Cutts. the Google technical expert and representative says in his video that the ‘noindex’ meta tag is a weak method in trying to prevent Google from indexing a page, since Googlebot will not always obey this tag.
-
If you are using similar tags for almost every post, yes it will create duplicate content, but If you are using them separately it wont create duplicate content.
For an example I had a movie site, I used tags for the Movie Cast, since every movie has different cast it never created any duplicate content, my that site was SEO miracle.
-
the sites that have tag pages ranking usually have onpage problems or a penalty. Instead of the page, they usually show that tag page....or the privacy page....or maybe the keyword is just not competitive and google has nothing better to put there. Ive seen all these cases.
It's up to you, you can noindex them or whatever you want. As long as you dont go crazy and put 1000 tags on your post and spam links to those tag pages, they shouldnt be a problem. At least in my case.
-
Make sure that is a no-index, follow tag so that you get your link juice back
-
I guess tags are there because they fulfill a function, but if they aren't useful for your users it shouldn't be a problem to erase them, as long as you take the necessary measures not to get tons of nasty 404s, although if what worries you is duplicate content, you could just noindex the tag pages, I think most SEO plugins for WP have this option, else it shouldn't be hard to include the noindex tag in tag.php or whatever file generates it's pages, then you wouldn't have to deprive your users of an useful function (if that's the case, off course).
About your question of Google's preference, I'm not aware of it, but couldn't it be because there are many internal pages linking to tag pages and also with the same anchor?
-
I would get rid of the tags, I don't think users use them, they are more like a gimmick.
Search engines are more likely to rank your primary page now, rather then the pages produced by tags
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
-
Deleting Tags Properly - Advice Needed
I have over 18,000 tags. Needless to say, most of them are relatively useless to the user and generate no traffic, while cluttering the site. (I use Wordpress.) My plan is to delete tags, but I want to do so safely as to not accumulate website errors. (Tags pages are noindexed.) What process should I take here? Here was my basic plan (any help is appreciated). 1. Find irrelevant tags that are connected with hardly any posts. 2. Go into the post, and remove said tag. 3. Now, with a tag having a 'count' of 0, I go into Tags, and delete it. Safe, right? But now it seems those tag pages just turned into 404s "Uh-oh...Page not found!" Where do I go from here? Create 410's? Thanks Mike
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Duplicate Content due to CMS
The biggest offender of our website's duplicate content is an event calendar generated by our CMS. It creates a page for every day of every year, up to the year 2100. I am considering some solutions: 1. Include code that stops search engines from indexing any of the calendar pages 2. Keep the calendar but re-route any search engines to a more popular workshops page that contains better info. (The workshop page isn't duplicate content with the calendar page). Are these solutions possible? If so, how do the above affect SEO? Are there other solutions I should consider?
Technical SEO | | ycheung0 -
Looking for a technical solution for duplicate content
Hello, Are there any technical solutions to duplicate content similar to the nofollow tag? A tag which can indicate to Google that we know that this is duplicate content but we want it there because it makes sense to the user. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | FusionMediaLimited0 -
Duplicate content or titles
Hello , I am working on a site, I am facing the duplicate title and content errors,
Technical SEO | | KLLC
there are following kind of errors : 1- A link with www and without www having same content. actually its a apartment management site, so it has different bedrooms apartments and booking pages , 2- my second issue is related to booking and details pages of bedrooms, because I am using 1 file for all booking and 1 file for all details page. these are the main errors which i am facing ,
can anyone give me suggestions regarding these issues ? Thnaks,0 -
Duplicate Content
Hi, I'm working on a site and I'm having some issues with its structure causing duplicate content. The first issue is that the search pages will show up as duplicates.
Technical SEO | | OOMDODigital
A search for new inventory may be new.aspx
The duplicate may be something like new.aspx=page1, or something like that and so on. The second issue is with inventory. When new inventory gets put into the stock of the store, a new page for that item will be populated with duplicate content. There appears to be no canonical source for that page. How can I fix both of these? Thanks!0 -
Index.php duplicate content
Hi, new here. Im looking for some help with htaccess file. index.php is showing duplicate content errors with: mysite.com/index.php mysite.com/ mysite.com ive managed to use the following code to remove the www part of the url: IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Technical SEO | | klsdnflksdnvl
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] but how can i redirect the mysite.com/index.php and mysite.com/ to mysite.com. Please help0 -
Duplicate Content based on www.www
In trying to knock down the most common errors on our site, we've noticed we do have an issue with dupicate content; however, most of the duplicate content errors are due to our site being indexed with www.www and not just www. I am perplexed as to how this is happening. Searching through IIS, I see nothing that would be causing this, and we have no hostname records setup that are www.www. Does anyone know of any other things that may cause this and how we can go about remedying it?
Technical SEO | | CredA0 -
How do I fix duplicate content with the home page?
This is probably SEO 101, but I'm unsure what to do here... Last week my weekly crawl diagnostics were off the chart because http:// was not resolving to http://www...fixed that but now it's saying I have duplicate content on: http://www.......com http://www.......com/index.php How do I fix this? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | jgower0