Ask a Question
-
SEO Moz has found a bunch of duplicate content errors on one of my sites because blog archives has created a new page for each tag.
For example: http://examplesite.com/blog/tag/travel
http://examplesite.com/blog/tag/travel-photography
http://examplesite.com/blog/tag/tours
http://examplesite.com/blog/tag/accommodations
The above urls are just tags for the same exact page, hence making them all duplicates. Is it normal for each tag to be a separate page? Do the search engines see this as duplicate content? If so, how do I correct this issue if I want to keep the tags? Regards,Dino
-
Ok, I'm at a complete loss now. I've now enabled the sitemap for the yeast SEO plugin and have checked the box in the plugin settings to not allow tags or categories in the sitemap. I've also went into each tag and plugin page and have selected to noindex and to not include in sitemap tags and plugins. Did this for each one, yet I just ran another crawl report and still getting duplicate pages from SEOMoz. Any suggestions why Seomoz is still finding those pages? What else can I do? Regards, Dino
-
OK, thanks Dan, and you're right, I should have gone back and read your first response again because in the end, that is exactly what I ended up doing. I no-indexed each tag with the SEO Yoast Plugin options.
I'm expecting that the next time SEO Moz crawls my sight that it won't count these as duplicates anymore. Am I correct in believing that?
Regards,
Dino
-
Thanks for chiming in! Just want to clarify, canonical tags would be the last resort. In this case, especially for WordPress, noindexing tag archves and noindexing subpages is the way to go first.
-Dan
-
Hey There
See my other answer. You first have to noindex tag archives. Then you can exclude them from the XML sitemap.
Noindexing tags will not harm SEO. Google has been not returning tag pages in search results very much at all anymore. You really want your articles themselves to rank.
-Dan
-
Hi There
What you need to do is;
- Using your SEO plugin (hopefully Yoast SEO plugin) - noindex tag archives.
- Also, noindex subpages of archives
It is normal for tags to be their own page, but it is not desirable to let the search engines index them, thus why we'll add the noindex for tag pages. The search engines can potentially see them as duplicate or thin content. It's OK they exist, just not ok to index them.
Some resources;
My article on Moz about setting up WordPress correctly
-Dan
-
Hey Donford:
I tried to uncheck the tags box in my Sitemap Plugin for Wordpress so the tags wouildn't be included in the Sitemap. In the latest crawl report, however, it is still showing all those tag pages as duplicate pages.
In the Edit Tag pages in Wordpress there are two boxes that allow me to "no index" the tag and another one to "exclude from Sitemap." Do think I am safe if I do both? I am "no indexing" all tags and am also eliminating them from the sitemap. Do you think I may be doing any harm to SEO?
Thanks, Dino.
-
You're very welcome
-
Right on, Donford! Thanks for the quick response. Regards, Dino
-
Hi Dino here are your questions and my answers
The above urls are just tags for the same exact page, hence making them all duplicates. Is it normal for each tag to be a separate page? This is powered by your CMS content mangment system, Wordpress and Joomla have ways to fix this issue. Check with your CMS forums to see if this is way to modify this behavior, or use canonical tags to prevent the duplicate content from being indexed.
Do the search engines see this as duplicate content? Yes
If so, how do I correct this issue if I want to keep the tags? Canonical tags or change the way the tags are generated and or content is archived.Hope that helps
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
-
QUESTION. Keyword Stuffing reduction while maintaining SEO optimal density?
Optimizing a keyword for a page on MOZ is telling me with a red exclamation mark to avoid keyword stuffing but if I remove any more of the keyword i will have none left in the content but titles etc. The moz message doesn't go away no matter how many keywords are removed. I am using wordpress i have the keyword the title element, the image alt text, the meta description/title, can't take anymore out of the content nothing seems to change but I can't figure out why?
Moz Pro | | 247mobileservices0 -
Question about Crawl Diagnostics - 4xx (Client Error) report
Hi here, I was wondering if there is a way to find out the originating page where a broken link is found from the 4xx (Client Error) report. I can't find a way to know that, and without that information is very difficult for me to fix any possible 404 related issues on my website. Any thoughts are very welcome! Thank you in advance.
Moz Pro | | fablau0 -
How to change a Discussions post to a Question
I've opened two discussions recently but they really happen to be more like questions. They were both answered but both posts are still opened : http://www.seomoz.org/q/reading-suggestions-for-a-local-french-small-biz-website http://www.seomoz.org/q/should-i-block-wordpress-archive-and-tag How can I change them back to Question so I can mark them as close? Thanks 🙂
Moz Pro | | Akeif0 -
I can't submit a private question
I'm trying to submit a private question but I get an error saying: We're sorry, but something went wrong. We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly. Cornel
Moz Pro | | Cornel_Ilea0 -
Conical tag question
I have now 124 notices showing rel = conical as follow , can you please advise are they ok , they might be due to new wordpress plugin URL: http://www.domain.com Tag value http://www.domain.com are they ok ? Although they look same but then why are they there , how can i remove them in word press and is there any reason for them to be left or removed . My site always uses www, if you put non www address it resolves automatically to www. My ranking have suddenly dropped as well . can it reason . I am aware of new update .
Moz Pro | | HateDoingSEO0 -
Question about difficulty score of keywords
I have a question regarding keyword selection and the difficulty score. I get the idea that you need to temper your desire to go after keyword phrases that generate lots of traffic with the reality of competition for that keyword, which is conveyed by the difficulty score. But how do we know when the difficulty score is too high? And isn't this relative to a website? If my website is in the top 1% of traffic, can't I go after more difficult keywords than if my traffic is in the top 10%? Are there guidelines or best practices to help with this decision? How do I know whether my website is "strong" enough to compete for a keyword that has a high difficulty score. If we already rank on page one of Google for numerous keywords with difficulty scores of 50 or so, is that an indicator that we can try to rank for other keywords with a difficulty score of 50? When do we know that we can start trying to rank for more diffcult keywords?
Moz Pro | | espressob2b0 -
Open Site Explorer Question- Link Value?
One of my backlinks is from a site that has a page authority of 74. However, the domain is a domain I purchased and 302'd to my current main domain. What I'm wondering (without getting into why a 301 is better than a 302) is this: does OSE have any tool that shows if there is actually value in a link? My assumption is that despite this domain having a PA of 74, the 302 is not passing over any value. To be clear, I understand that a 302 doesn't pass over any SEO value, but my question is whether or not OSE shows the value of a link? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | RodrigoStockebrand0 -
Initial Crawl Questions
Hello. I just joined and used the Crawl tool. I have many questions and hoping the community can offer some guidance. 1. I received an Excel file with 3k+ records. Is there a friendly online viewer for the Crawl report? Or is the Excel file the only output? 2. Assuming the Excel file is the only output, the Time Crawled is a number (i.e. 1305798581). I have tried changing the field to a date/time format but that did not work. How can I view the field as a normal date/time such as May 15, 2011 14:02? 3. I use the ™ symbol in my Title. This symbol appears in the output as a few ascii characters. Is that a concern? Should I remove the trademark symbol from my Title? 4. I am using XenForo forum software. All forum threads automatically receive a Title Tag and Meta Description as part of a template. The Crawl Test report shows my Title Tag and Meta Description as blank for many threads. I have looked at the source code of several pages and they all have clean Title tags and I don't understand why the Crawl Report doesn't show them. Any ideas? 5. In some cases the HTTP Status Code field shows a result of "3". Why does that mean? 6. For every URL in the Crawl Report there is an entry in the Referrer field. What exactly is the relationship between these fields? I thought the Crawl Tool would inspect every page on the site. If a page doesn't have a referring page is it missed? What if a page has multiple referring pages? How is that information displayed? 7. Under Google Webmaster Tools > Site Configurations > Settings > Parameter Handling I have the options set as either "Ignore" or "Let Google Decide" for various URL parameters. These are "pages" of my site which should mostly be ignored. For example a forum may have 7 headers, each on of which can be sorted in ascending or descending order. The only page that matters is the initial page. All the rest should be ignored by Google and the Crawl. Presently there are 11 records for many pages which really should only have one record due to these various sort parameters. Can I configure the crawl so it ignores parameter pages? I am anxious to get started on my site. I dove into the crawl results and it's just too messy in it's present state for me to pull out any actionable data. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Moz Pro | | RyanKent0