Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Less Tags better for SEO?
-
I am currently reviewing my strategy when it comes to categories and tags on my site. Having been no-indexed for some time, and having many tags with just one entry I am thinking that this is not optimal for SEO purposes.
This is what I am planning:
- Categories - Change these to Index, but only after adding a hundred words or so by way of introduction (see this example - https://www.besthostnews.com/news/hosting/a-small-orange-news/). With the categories I am thinking of highlighting key articles as well to improve link juice distribution to older articles that are important.
- Tags - About half my tags have only 1 entry, with a few more just having 2 entries. I am thinking of deleting all tags with just one entry, and trying to merge those with just two or 3 entries where it makes sense to do so. I will keep these as no-index, but I think this will mean more optimal distribution of link juice within the site.
I would appreciate your thoughts \ suggestions on the best practices here.
-
I have added an update here: http://moz.com/community/q/reviewing-category-tag-policy-update
-
Thank you. The example page i linked is actually a resource that helps with conversions. . The content at the top will highlight the better posts rather than some of the fluff posts that I rel canonical or no-index (i.e. old offers etc). The problem is that if I do more than 100 words, it would end up fluff. I think it adds value by linking to some external resources and key posts, so I will work towards building that up over time.
But thank you for your indepth reply. You are saying alot of what I was thinking, but not convinced enough to make the drastic changes I probably need to do.
I am tempted to remove tags. I don't think anyone ever visits them.
Update: I have now removed the tags. I can always create one or two new categories if I need to in the future, but for now I think I have made the best decision for my site. 160 pages that were never visited and diluted link juice have just been deleted.
-
I am currently reviewing my strategy when it comes to categories and tags on my site.
Everyone should do this. I do it once every year or so.
Having been no-indexed for some time, and having many tags with just one entry I am thinking that this is not optimal for SEO purposes.
I agree. I don't use tag pages.
Categories - Change these to Index, but only after adding a hundred words or so by way of introduction (see this example).
Where I have used categories, I wait until I have a substantive amount of material to appear on the category page. I visited your sample page and can't tell if the hundred words or so at the top is yada yada yada content or real beef. If it is real beef then go with it. If it is yada yada yada then wait until you have a large enough number of posts that your page is of substantive length.
Also, I run periodic traffic assessments on my category pages. If some of them are not bringing in the traffic or at least showing traffic growth then I delete them (301 redirect to the blog homepage). My philosophy is that a compact site competes better for difficult, high-traffic terms if it does not have a lot of useless pages.
I am thinking of deleting all tags with just one entry,
Yes, these never should have been created.
and trying to merge those with just two or 3 entries where it makes sense
If this is going to create pages that compete with category pages then just delete them.
I will keep these as no-index, but I think this will mean more optimal distribution of link juice within the site.
In my opinion, tag pages are dangerous if they have snippets of the same content that appears on category pages and on the main blog page and its paginations. Also, tag pages that are same topic as category pages are a bad idea in my opinion.
If you are not indexing pages they will pull zero traffic from search. If you have links to them then you linkjuice is being scattered into potentially low-value pages. I am all about internal linking but keep my philosophy that compact sites compete more strongly for the difficult queries where the big traffic is earned.
-
Neither have been indexed due to that very reason... duplicate content, poor quality \ thin content.
-
Have both the categories as tags been indexed by Google? Usually you leave one of them out of the indexes of Google to make sure you don't get in trouble with creating a lot of duplicate content and not unique pages.
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
-
What heading tag to use on sidebars and footers
Hello, I have some awareness of how to use H1, H2 and H3.
On-Page Optimization | | kowston
H1 only once per page as the main page heading.
H2's should be subheadings, H3's are sub-sub headings of the and so on.
This structure gives hierarchy and opportunities to use additional keywords in an order of priority. I can clearly understand how this would work in an article but what about other content on the page such as global/frequently repeated elements like sidebars and footers? I see sites - and in particular, I have examed SEO focused sites - that use H3, H4 and H5 in these instances seemingly giving themselves scope to use at least H2 tags as part of the page content and break out of the structure hierarchy when dealing with sidebars and footers. I suppose this could signal theses headings are sections of the page that are less relevant than the main article content but that is just an assumption. I don't know what is correct.0 -
H1 tag positioning impact
Hello, I am currently working with a dev team to develop a new site. We have designed the title tags to sit below a banner image on each page but the technical team are insisting the h1 title tags must come above the banner for maximum SEO impact. I am sceptical about this, can anybody please shed some light and/or share any up to date resource on this? I have attached a side by side wireframe to illustrate the pages with the h1 tags in both positions. Thank you! HnWcLTx
On-Page Optimization | | Popidev0 -
Product Descriptions (SEO)
So I would like a few opinions. How long should a product description be? Enough to get the point across? 100 words? 800 words? Over detailed? Any advice would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | mattl990 -
Do WooCommerce product tags effect SEO?
I'm just curious if I need these product tags and if they impact in any way at all SEO? - whether that be positively or negatively. on1iRin
On-Page Optimization | | xdunningx0 -
Duplicate content with tagging and categories
Hello, Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories... Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway. Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | wearehappymedia1 -
Title tag length
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si
On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf0 -
Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
Very simple, Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on? Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original. Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia680