Tags on WordPress Sites, Good or bad?
-
My main concern is about the entire tags strategy. The whole concept has really been first seen by myself on WordPress which seems to be bringing positive results to these sites and now there are even plugins that auto generate tags.
Can someone detail more about the pros and cons of tags? I was under the impression that google does not want 1000's of pages auto generated just because of a simple tag keyword, and then show relevant content to that specific tag. Usually these are just like search results pages... how are tag pages beneficial?
Is there something going on behind the scenes with wordpress tags that actually bring benefits to these wp blogs? Setting a custom coded tag feature on a custom site just seems to create numerous spammy pages. I understand these pages may be good from a user perspective, but what about from an SEO perspective and getting indexed and driving traffic...
Indexed and driving traffic is my main concern here, so as a recap I'd like to understand the pros and cons about tags on wp vs custom coded sites, and the correct way to set these up for SEO purposes.
-
I approve of this comment
-
Hey There
For the most part, it is not a good idea to just use tags as a way to try and gain search traffic from them. They are possibly beneficial to users internal to your site. Users may read an article and want to read other similar articles, so having a few tags at the bottom of the post can be useful. Putting tags in your sidebar for navigation is rarely useful, but if done in a somewhat user friendly way it could work. I generally avoid "tag clouds" or having dozens of tag links in one spot.
In terms of the tag archives themselves (like mysite.com/blog/tag/tag-name/), tag archives rarely look different than posts themselves or other archives. Unless you have a giant site, with so many posts, and tags actually add a beneficial way to scroll through archives on a very specific topic, categories do this fine enough.
And for indexation - if it's a new site or a site that has NOT ever indexed tags I would advise to not index them moving forward either. Unless in a rare .5% of cases this is done in an extremely intentional and strategic way, not for SEO but for users and site architecture. (Think of a site like Smashing Magazine or Search Engine Land with LOTS of content, that's a rare edge case where using tags for navigation and architecture might make sense.)
If you HAVE indexed tags already I wrote an article on how to safely evaluate and noindex them.
In general, I would avoid tagging a post with more than 4-5 tags. Tags should always be different from categories (like more specific things).
-Dan
-
So much depends on how you've implemented tags on your site and who your audience is.
It can be tempting to implement tags to try and make up for a broken categorisation and it's tempting to add tags to a page because they mention a topic rather than because it's actually relevant to that tag.
It worth taking a look at your analytics to see if (and how) your visitors are using your tag pages. I've see many sites where visitors just don't use the tags (there too many, they're meaning less, or even they are not obviously links!) and a lot of this depends on just how many tags your using, how meaningful these tags are to people and the relevance and quality of the articles you have associated with each tag.
Have you got internal search set up on your site and are you capturing the search data in your analytics? This can provide some great insights in what people are struggling to find on your site and what they expect to find. It can also highlight areas where your IA isn't working.
(As James mentioned) If your tag pages are indexed, and getting inbound search traffic then segment your non-paid search traffic and look at the bounce rate and other engagement metrics. How valuable is this traffic to you, and how relevant are they finding your tag pages as the answer to their query?
-
Also check how much traffic the tags are currently getting, one site I have looked at in the past had like 16k uv a month from some tags on the site so proceed with caution also I agree with the advice above as well.
-
Hey there
Dan Shure wrote this fantastic Wordpress optimisation guide here on the Moz blog a year or so ago and it is still very relevant for today. In that post, he goes into depth about the problems with tags and what your best practice should be. Usually, you want to noindex the tags on your WP site - keep them for navigation purposes if you want, but letting them be indexed can lead to duplicate content issues.
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
-
Search Console Incorrectly Identifies WordPress Version and Recommends Update
Howdy, Moz fans, Today I received four emails from Google Search Console recommending I update WordPress. The message reads, "Google has detected that your site is currently running WordPress 3.3.1, an older version of WordPress. Outdated or unpatched software can be vulnerable to hacking and malware exploits that harm potential visitors to your site. Therefore, we suggest you update the software on your site as soon as possible." This is incorrect, however, since I've been on 4.3.1 for a while. 3.3.1 was never even installed since this site was created in September, 2015, so the initial WP Engine install was likely 4.3. What's interesting is that it doesn't list the root URL as the problem source. The email states that it found that issue on a URL that is set up via WP Engine to 301 to a different site, which doesn't use WordPress. I also have other redirects set up to different pages on the second site that aren't listed in the Search Console email. Anyone have any ideas as to what's causing this misidentification of WP versions? I am afraid that Google sees this as a vulnerability and is penalizing my site accordingly. Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jmorehouse0 -
Preventing CNAME Site Duplications
Hello fellow mozzers! Let me see if I can explain this properly. First, our server admin is out of contact at the moment,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
so we are having to take this project on somewhat blind. (forgive the ignorance of terms). We have a client that needs a cname record setup, as they need a sales.DOMAIN.com to go to a different
provider of data. They have a "store" platform that is hosted elsewhere and they require a cname to be
sent to a custom subdomain they set up on their end. My question is, how do we prevent the cname from being indexed along with the main domain? If we
process a redirect for the subdomain, then the site will not be able to go out and grab the other providers
info and display it. Currently, if you type in the sales.DOMAIN.com it shows the main site's homepage.
That cannot be allow to take place as we all know, having more than one domain with
exact same content = very bad for seo. I'd rather not rely on Google to figure it out. Should we just have the cname host (where its pointing at) add a robots rule and have it set to not index
the cname? The store does not need to be indexed, as the items are changed almost daily. Lastly, is an A record required for this type of situation in any way? Forgive my ignorance of subdomains, cname records and related terms. Our server admin being
unavailable is not helping this project move along any. Any advice on the best way to handle
this would be very helpful!0 -
One page sites
HI Guys, I need help with a one page site What is the best method to getting the lower pages indexed? Linking back to the site(Deeplinking) is looking impossible. Will this hurt my SEO? Are there any other tips on one page websites that you can recommend?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Johnny_AppleSeed0 -
Is horizontal hashtag linking between 4 different information text pages with a canonical tag to the URL with no hashtag, a White Hat SEO practice?
Hey guys, I need help. hope it is a simple question : if I have horizontal 4 text pages which you move between through hashtag links, while staying on the same page in user experience, can I canonical tag the URL free of hashtags as the canonical page URL ? is this white hat acceptable practice? and will this help "Adding the Value", search queries, and therefore rank power to the canonical URL in this case? hoping for your answers. Best Regards, and thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Is it worth getting links from .blogspot.com and .wordpress.com?
Our niche ecommerce site has only one thing going for it: We have numerous opportunities on a weekly basis to get reviews from "mom bloggers". We need links - our domain authority is depressing. My concern is that these "mom bloggers" tend to have blogs that end with .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com. How do I screen for "reviewers" that are worth getting links from and how can I make the most of the community we have available to us?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Wilkerson1 -
One good domain generating to much links what to do
I think penguin had no effect yet on spain. propdental.com remain the same.And propdental.es still growing.No penguin 2.0 effect. I think it will need a few more days to see if there is impact on spain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas
Althought i have a question regarding coagnitive SEO, (is regarding a link to propdental.es from unidirectorio.com) i think is a good web, but as generated me an very big amount of links)i have this on link from unidirectorio.com that has generated 2400 links to www.propdental.es with this ancor text "clinica dental con dentistas especialistas en implantes dentales ortodoncia invisalign y carillas" Links is comes from this page http://undirectorio.com/Salud/dentistas/ and then generates 2400I can not remove this link. I seemed a good directory with just 3 pages linking out and good page rank on my specific field.I ask google to dont take that link into account, although i am not sure if i did it well.**Can someone tell me how to say to google to dont take in account the links from a domain?**google still shows this link on webmaster tools, i am afraid it ends up been bad. I seems a good directory is not an exact ancor text although containt all work i want to rank.What would be your advice? Do i have any way to make sure that google does not have the links recieved from that domain into account0 -
Does your website get downgraded if you link to a lower quality site?
My site has a pr of 4. My friends site has a pr of 2 but I think that he is doing some black hat seo techniques. I wanted to know whether the search engines would ding me for linking to (i.e., validating) a lower quality site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jamesjd70 -
Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
Hi All, In relation to this thread http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-happend-to-my-ranks-began-dec-22-detailed-info-inside I'm still getting whipped hard from Google, this week for some reason all rankings have gone for the past few days. What I was wondering though is this, when Google says- Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations? I assume my site hits the nail on the head- [removed links at request of author] As you can see I target LG Optimus 3D Sim Free, LG Optimus 3D Contract and LG Optimus 3D Deals. Based on what Google has said, I know think there needs to be 1 page that covers it all instead of 3. What I'm wondering is the best way to deal with the situation? I think it should be something like this but please correct me along the way 🙂 1. Pick the strongest page out of the 3 2. Merge the content from the 2 weaker pages into the strongest 3. Update the title/meta info of the strongest page to include the KW variations of all 3 eg- LG Optimus 3D Contract Deals And Sim Free Pricing 4. Then scatter contract, deals and sim free throughout the text naturally 5. Then delete the weaker 2 pages and 301 redirect to the strongest page 6. Submit URL removal via webmastertools for the 2 weaker pages What would you do to correct this situation? Am I on the right track?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mwoody0