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.
Tags - Good or bad for SEO
-
We are getting Moz errors for duplicate content because tag pages share the same blog posts. Is there any way to fix this? Are these errors bad for SEO, or can I simply disregard these and ignore them?
We are also getting Moz errors for missing descriptions on tag pages. I am unsure how to fix these errors, as we do not actually have pages for these on our WordPress site where we are able to put in a description.
I have heard that having tags can be good for SEO? (We don't mind having several links that show up when searching for us on google...) As far as the SEO goes, I am not sure what to do. Does anyone know the best strategy?
-
Taxonomies: Categories and Tags
Implementing categories and tags on your website is an important way to add structure to it. These taxonomies group content on a certain topic. When used properly, Google will understand the structure of your site better.
Categories have a hierarchical structure. There can be subcategories within categories. Tags do not have a hierarchical structure. Think of it like this: categories are the table of contents of your website, and tags are the index.
Duplicate content
Duplicate content means that the same content is shown in multiple locations on your site. As a reader, you don’t mind: you’ll get the content you came for. But it confuses a search engine: it has to pick which one to show in the search results, as it doesn’t want to show the same content twice.
Above that, when other websites link to your product, chances are some of them link to the first URL, and others link to the second URL. If these duplicates were all linking to the same URL, your chance of ranking in the top 10 for the relevant keyword would be much higher.
The solution for duplicate content is a so-called canonical link. A canonical link tells the search engines: yes, this content is duplicate, and this one is the original content.
Structure of your website...why? The importance of site structure for SEO
The structure of a website or a blog is of great importance for its chances to rank in search engines. In my opinion, there are two main reasons for this:1 - A decent structure makes sure Google ‘understands’ your site.
The way your website is structured will give Google important clues about where to find the most important content. Your site’s structure determines whether a search engine can understand what your site is about, and how easily it will find and index the content relevant to your site’s purpose and intent. A good structure could, therefore, lead to a higher ranking in Google.
2 - A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.
On your site, you will probably write multiple pages about similar topics. Let's take an example you have a recipes website and you want to create a structure for your website. So you several recipes on your website and you have several categories such as Italian recipes, French recipes, Mexican recipes and so on. On the other hand, your tags can be used in another approach such as breakfast, dinner, lunch, low cab ect on this way you do not compete with your own content resulting in higher rankings.
So how to fix your errors?
1 - Add title, meta-description and canonical tags to your tag pages.
if you are using WordPress is pretty easy to do it. You just need to install Yoast SEO plugin and check one by one all your tag pagesIf the answer were useful do not forget to mark it as a Good Answer CHEERS
and Good Luck
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
-
True or False? Having your phone number in the header of your nav bar is good for SEO?
I have been told by a a few different SEO and Marketing Agency friends that by putting your address and phone number in the top section of your navbar is great for SEO. Does this myth have any merit or is it just misguided? Tksac28
On-Page Optimization | | UndergrndMarketing0 -
Commas in title tags
Hello Guys, Thanks in advance for all who can help me with this I am helping a dinnerware company with their SEO. I told them to change their ambiguous title tags for more specific ones. However, they opted to create some title tags with 2 or three keywords separated by commas. I have attached an excel image illustrating their new title tags.. My question is, will this format be a problem with Google--penalties? The questionable title tags are highlighted in light orange. Thanks! lHH92
On-Page Optimization | | HectorCortes0 -
Category page canonical tag
I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson9
/range.html?p=3
/range.html?dir=asc&order=price
/range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.1 -
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 -
Footer copyright year statement. good or bad
Hi, I see a lot of sites with a year copyright statment in the footer like Copyright 2011 - DomainName.com or Copyright 2002 - 2012 - Domainname.com since new year a lot of sites (founded before 2011) still have 2011 instead of 2012 in the footer. Do you think the date gives any signals to google? Should someone update the date or remove it completely? I would tend to remove it completely since the page date for google is submitted in the HTTP header. But maybe the info could be of any use for the user. Any best practices?
On-Page Optimization | | Autoschieber0 -
H1 tag in the footer?
Quick question: I have been scouring SEOMoz.org along with webmaster forums looking for an answer, but we have a person who insists that the H1 tag be located in the Footer. I feel that is is fundamentally wrong because it is not the intent of the H1 tag, and I do not believe it is a best practice. That being said would we see what little value the H1 tag has disappear if we put it in the footer, would we be penalized, or am I being too vanilla by wanting to keep it in the Title position?
On-Page Optimization | | travelclickseo0