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.
Wordpress categories causing too many links/duplicate content?
-
I've just added categories to my wordpress site and some of the posts show in several of the categories. Will this cause me duplicate content problems as I want the category pages to be indexed? Also as I add more categories I'm creating more links on the page. They can't be seen to the user as I have a plugin that creates drop down categories. When I go to 'view source' though all the links are there so google will see lots of links. How can I fix the too many links problem? And should I worry about duplicate content issue?
-
I'm currently using SEO category updater plugin. I have about 10 posts per category showing snippets of each not the full page. If I write a new title, and description for each page, about around 50 words of text would that be enough for google to identify the page as being unique? The problem is I have hundreds of categories so it could be very time consuming.
-
Chenzo is correct, install the SEO Ultimate plugin as this does wonders for deep editing of titles and descriptions for categories/tags and more. There is a setting that you can rewrite the URL from categories in the url to a specific post url.
I usually avoid having categories in the URL due to the issue you describe above of having multiple categories, I use a rewrite to just have a url such as /blog/post-name/ instead of /blog/category/tag/post-name/.
-
In the categories section in Wordpress, you can add a description for each category. This description will then show up on each category. This is a great way to avoid duplicate/thin content by adding a bit of unique content to each category page. Also, make sure only snippets of each post appear on the category page, rather than the full post, in order to prevent duplicate content.
I wouldn't worry too much about the extra additional links, unless you're talking about hundreds of categories. Having links to your category pages is a good thing form a site architecture standpoint.
-
Universal wordpress settings are not best practice and it is my suggestion to install - "seo ultimate" but only utilize the "title tag" "meta tag" features as it will allow you to structure the post/wordpress site to SEO spec.
Also giving you the option for categories etc.
Hope this helps.
Your pal,
Chenzo
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
-
SEO advice on ecommerce url structure where categories contain "/c/"
Hi! We use Hybris as plattform and I would like input on which url to choose. We must keep "/c/" before the actual category. c stands for category. I.e. this current url format will be shortened and cleaned:
Technical SEO | | hampgunn
https://www.granngarden.se/Sortiment/Husdjur/Hund/Hundfoder-%26-Hundmat/c/hundfoder To either: a.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/hundfoder/c/hundfoder b.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/c/hundfoder (hundfoder means dogfood) The question is whether we should keep the duplicated category name (hundfoder) before the "/c/" or not. Will there be SEO disadvantages by removing the duplicate "hundfoder" before the "/c/"? I prefer the shorter version ofc, but do not want to jeopardize any SEO rankings or send confusing signals to search engines or customers due to the "/c/" breaking up the url breadcrumb. What do you guys say and prefer from the above alternatives? Thanks /Hampus0 -
Yoast and wordpress duplicate meta
I'm using the Yoast plugin with wordpress and have noticed in my HTML I have duplicate meta data. For example my header starts with
Technical SEO | | simonatkinsphoto
<title>(title) </title<span><<br /><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:site_name</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><span><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><br /></span></span>Then I have the 'This site is optimised by Yoast" tagline followed by the same meta -<br /> <span><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">name</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:title</span><span>" content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:site_name</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><br /></span></span></span></span>Is this likely to cause problems with Google and is there a way to stop both wordpress and Yoast adding meta to the header. </p></title>0 -
Is duplicate content ok if its on LinkedIn?
Hey everyone, I am doing a duplicate content check using copyscape, and realized we have used a ton of the same content on LinkedIn as our website. Should we change the LinkedIn company page to be original? Or does it matter? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Duplicate Content and URL Capitalization
I have multiple URLs that SEOMoz is reporting as duplicate content. The reason is that there are characters in the URL that may, or may not, be capitalized depending on user input. A couple examples are: www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-rent www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-rent There are currently thousands of instances of this on the site. Is this something I should spend effort to try and resolve (may not be minor effort), or should I just ignore it and move on?
Technical SEO | | Jom0 -
Solving duplicate content with WP authors, tags, categories
I've been kind of neglecting wordpress installations on my websites and noticed many showing duplicate content for pages showing under author and tags, tags and single post, categories and single post. Should this be a concern? Whats the best way of fixing this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | cgman0 -
How to resolve this Duplicate content?
Hi , There is page i get when i do proper menu navigation Caratlane.com>jewellery>rings>casualsrings> http://www.caratlane.com/jewellery/rings/casual-rings/leaves-dew-diamond-0-03-ct-peridot-1-ct-ring-18k-yellow-gold.html When i do a site search in my search box by my product code number "JR00219" The same page is appears with different url http://www.caratlane.com/leaves-dew-diamond-0-03-ct-peridot-1-ct-ring-18k-yellow-gold.html So there is a duplicate content. How can we resolve it. Regards, kathir caratlane.com
Technical SEO | | kathiravan0 -
Duplicate content and http and https
Within my Moz crawl report, I have a ton of duplicate content caused by identical pages due to identical pages of http and https URL's. For example: http://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations https://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations The strange thing is that 99% of these URL's are not sensitive in nature and do not require any security features. No credit card information, booking, or carts. The web developer cannot explain where these extra URL's came from or provide any further information. Advice or suggestions are welcome! How do I solve this issue? THANKS MOZZERS
Technical SEO | | hawkvt10 -
Duplicate canonical URLs in WordPress
Hi everyone, I'm driving myself insane trying to figure this one out and am hoping someone has more technical chops than I do. Here's the situation... I'm getting duplicate canonical tags on my pages and posts, one is inside of the WordPress SEO (plugin) commented section, and the other is elsewhere in the header. I am running the latest version of WordPress 3.1.3 and the Genesis framework. After doing some testing and adding the following filters to my functions.php: <code>remove_action('wp_head', 'genesis_canonical'); remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');</code> ... what I get is this: With the plugin active + NO "remove action" - duplicate canonical tags
Technical SEO | | robertdempsey
With the plugin disabled + NO "remove action" - a single canonical tag
With the plugin disabled + A "remove action" - no canonical tag I have tried using only one of these remove_actions at a time, and then combining them both. Regardless, as long as I have the plugin active I get duplicate canonical tags. Is this a bug in the plugin, perhaps somehow enabling the canonical functionality of WordPress? Thanks for your help everyone. Robert Dempsey0