Are post tags on blogs still useful?
-
Hello
I have a number of sites on Wordpress which all still use the post tag feature. Is this something that I should really be avoiding due to duplicate content issues in the url's of the site, or is it still something that can help SEO wise?
I only ask as I did a crawl diagnostics report on SEOmoz and it found that 48 of my title elements were too short due to these tags in the URL's.
If you do all suggest I keep using them, should they be 3 odd words which are keywords?
Thanks in advance.
-
One quick aside: categories in WordPress are easier to SEO then tags. Wordpress collects category descriptions. Plugins like All In One SEO Pack can use this info to write a meta description for you. Wordpress doens't collect descriptions for tags so plugins can' use this info to write out a meta description for your tag pages.
-
Search engines can't really tell the difference between types of pages.
Do you want your tag pages to rank in search results? If so you could add a description. The All In One SEO plugin I mentioned could help with this. However, as I alluded to before, it's tough to get lots of tag pages to rank well in google. I wouldn't worry too much about adding meta descriptions for them.
-
Hi Daniel,
Regarding blocking the tag directory in the robots.txt file, I did some searching about on SEOmoz and I found this post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/serious-robotstxt-misuse-high-impact-solutions where she says that
The best way to use a robots.txt file is to not use it at all. Well... almost. Use it to indicate that robots have full access to all files on your website and to direct robots to your sitemap.xml file. That’s it.
Would you agree with this or do you still think that blocking the tags would help? What you are saying makes sense to me but I just wanted to double check with you before I did it!
Many thanks
-
Thanks for your help guys. One more question.....on the crawl diagnostics report mentioned above, there are 48 meta descriptions missing which are all on tag url's. Is this a probem or can a search engine distinquish between a tag and a real post?
-
I run a wedding blog. A few of our categories rank highly in google. None of our tags do. Of course to Google tags and categories are essentially the same thing.
There are some simple WordPress plugins that allow you to noindex or nofollow your tags if you decide you're worried about duplicate content or want to do some page rank scuplting. I recommend the All In One SEO Pack.
-
Tags never were useful for SEO and are not now. They are strictly a usability feature. If you use categories then tags are certainly obsolete. If you use the all in one seo pack you can noindex your tag pages I believe, so I would do this to avoid duplicate issues. Also block the /tag/ directory in your robots.txt file.
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
-
If my blog is on Wordpress, and I've installed the AMP plug-in, what do I need to do to get Google to start indexing all my posts as AMP pages?
If I add /amp to the end of any of my posts, I can see that the plug-in is working. It's been months since I installed it, though, and Google hasn't indexed any of the AMP pages. Am I missing a step?
Content Development | | DeanRamadan0 -
We used to sell links ...
We used to sell text links on our site WebDesign.org , I told about that via Twitter in public, Google penalized us and here’s the history of the issue in more detail. I write it here to ask if you guys know how to sort out this issue coz I’m not exactly sure at this point. Before I tackle the issue itself, here's some background. OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE Jun 22, 2013 We received an Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual spam action message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) from Google July 1, 2013 We nofollowed all homepage links and submitted a reconsideration request July 10, 2013 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines July 15, 2013 We removed links to low quality and irrelevant sites (such as Chinese stores, etc) and submitted another reconsideration request July 22, 2013 Manual Spam Action revoked INBOUND LINKS ISSUE November 8, 2013 We got a message from Google about Unnatural links to your site - impacts links (Message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) November 27, 2013 We Submitted a Disavow file with Deadly Risky links (found via generating a LinkDetox report) and submitted a reconsideration request December 15, 2013 Manual Action revoked (main keyword ranking got from 41 to 4) February 6, 014 And here's the actual issue: OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE (Again) I told via Twitter in public that our site sells links. Matt Cutts noticed that and we got another Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual action). Main keyword ranking decreased from 9 to 65. We removed all outbound links on the homepage and submitted a reconsideration request. April 15, 2014 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines. We nofollowd all outbound links with JavaScript (wrong move because Google did not take it as nofollowed) and submitted another reconsideration request. April 19, 2014 Google rejected our reconsideration request and said that we still violate their quality guidelines. April 23, 2014 We nofollowed properly this time (with PHP) and submitted another reconsideration request. May 4, 2014 Google replies that we still violate their quality guidelines. So, at this point I’m kinda lost in terms of what to do next because we've nofollowed all our outbound links (both paid and natural ones). What would you recommend?
Content Development | | VinceWicks0 -
How can I influence my colleagues to write blog articles for my company?
Hi, I am trying to get my colleagues work in different department to write an article about their expertise area. They are not aware that what type of benefits they would get if they become an online author. I am trying to make a list of reason why they should participate. I was wondering anyone else would also make any recommendation what i should tell them. So far, my points are: Wider your online presence beyond Facebook and LinkedIn Go extra mile and share your thoughts **Show your expertise ** Reach nationwide readers Thanks!
Content Development | | Rubix0 -
Same content on site blog as a separate blog. Will unpublishing on one blog evade duplicate content issues?
I just discovered my client was posting the same content as the site I'm working on for him on a separate blog. I don't want to run into duplicate content issues. Both are Wordpress sites. Will it suffice to simply unpublish duplicate entries on the other blog and leave the posts as drafts?
Content Development | | locallyrank0 -
The concept of Blogging
Can anyone describe the fundamentals of blogging? Should I be aiming blog posts at "subject A vs subject B" or more on recent projects that have been worked on such as "keyword working with company A to complete subject X" ? Also, should I allow comments on posts and filter out the spam using plugins and manual methods or should I just turn them off and forget the hassle? Any help would be grand!
Content Development | | Hughescov0 -
Name Some Ecommerce Sites That NAIL Blogging
Have a few favorites but would like to get some other people's opinions on some ecommerce sites that are doing blogging RIGHT. Who is supporting their online marketing with an amazing blog? One of my favorites is Backcountry.com's The Goat (http://thegoat.backcountry.com/) Let me know!
Content Development | | GManSEO1 -
Blog Posts Not Getting Indexed by SERP's
Our blog posts are typically indexed rather quickly, sometimes within 10 minutes or so. Lately it seems like it is taking much longer, and a post from yesterday afternoon isn't appearing in any of the search engines. Can anyone give me an idea why this may be happening? http://www.360dwellings.com/2011-denver-parade-of-homes-luxury-home-tour/
Content Development | | 360ryan0 -
What Website Visual Structure Software Do You Use?
I need to continually create website trees for our group of websites. I was wondering what software you guys use to create site structure/trees? I've used Powerpoint, Giffy and other diagram software but ideally I want to find something that crawls my site and spits out a diagram and also gives me the option to add none existing trees so I can show new purposed sections. Cheers, Gary
Content Development | | Seaward-Group2