Category pages - SEO or deindex?
-
What is the best thing to do with category pages? Should I deindex them or use SEO on them? I use the Thesis theme and the Wordpress SEO plugin. I am just not sure what to do with category pages.
Also will they create duplicate content?
-
Just to follow up on this - I am ranking # 5 for a category page and it's a competitive keyword. So I am not sure deindexing category pages is the best idea and I am glad I didn't do it with my second and new blog.
-
I've also been wondering about this recently but I've made similar observations on a much smaller scale and it makes sense.
What about only displaying the excerpts on the category page, and use your unique (maybe?) meta descriptions as the excerpt?
-
I don't get any traffic to my category pages but of course my site is new so I am just getting a couple organic hits per day.
But my category pages do just give an excerpt. More than a sentence or two though. I already deindexed them. I guess I can revisit that later.
-
My category pages just organize all my blog posts. Nothing new.
-
I just remembered that Thesis and Wordpress SEO sometimes conflict. I made some adjustments and added some code to alleviate some of these conflicts but perhaps the deindexing of category pages was overrode by Thesis.
I just clicked on noindex category pages in Thesis. I also clicked on noarchive to category pages in Thesis.
Will that do it?
-
I am using YOAST SEO so that is good. So I don't have to do anything to get them deindexed?
If Wordpress SEO (by Yoast) deindexes my category pages, why are they showing up in my sitelinks? I tried to demote the category pages but they keep showing up. Thanks!
-
I have a blog with 150 category pages and they pull in kickass traffic. Lots of those pages bring in over 1000 visitors per month.
If you have long blog posts and display the first sentence or two on the category page that will not be duplicate content. It is no different than a category page for an ecommerce store. Category pages get out there and compete for serious traffic terms.
Lots of people say don't index them. That's not what I have found and if I noindexed them I would be walking away from a lot of income and more traffic than is received by the rest of the blog combined.
-
In every case i've seen they should be deindexed. Install YOAST SEO plugin and it will deindex them by default. It's a great plugin too.
-
Your category pages should be no-indexed if they don't have rich unique content per category. It is hard to say without seeing the category pages if it will provide duplicate content, but in most cases it will. You should also no index your archive area as well because that will definitely provide duplicate content.
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
-
When making content pages to a specific page; should you index it straight away in GSC or let Google crawl it naturally?
When making content pages to a specific page; should you index it straight away in GSC or let Google crawl it naturally?
On-Page Optimization | | Jacksons_Fencing0 -
Theme create category page stuffed with Keyword
Hi All, Quick question and I think I already know the answer but wanted to get a second opinion. We have a ecom site running woo commerce and the theme is coded to insert the product category name under the product name on the category page. This has resulted in the category page being stuffed with my keyword 'sofa beds'. Am I right in thinking that in the eyes of Google this page will be penalised for over use of my keyword or does Google view category pages differently? Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-S0 -
Content for the Home Page
Hi All, I have a Videos website which contains Videos of all types + Family safe type... The home page has sections and Videos listed. Now for SEO purpose i need to have content? this is what i read in most places. What is the kind of content i can place on a Videos website Home page? I can write about a Movie or actor but that content on Home page would that be of any use? We have a About us page etc to know who we are.. Any ideas please..
On-Page Optimization | | Nettv0 -
Contact pages coming up for keywords above landing pages
I have two examples of contact pages coming up over designated landing pages Keyword: Nickel Alloys for www.neonickel.com Keyword: Artificial Grass for www.artificialgrass4u.co.uk Is there anyway I can stop this happening?
On-Page Optimization | | icansee0 -
Schema for Web/SEO Service Pages
I was thinking about setting up my services pages for SEO and Web design with Schema code for a product. Is this a good idea? Has anyone done it?
On-Page Optimization | | NeilBelliveau0 -
We have 5 postions on page 2 in a google search, but none on page 1\. How can we fix this?
For one of our most important key phrases we have 5 listings on page 2 but none on page 1. We are an ecommerce company, the key phrase we're trying for is a Top Level Category name for us, so the 5 links we have on googles second page for the key phrase (in order) are the appropriate top level category page, the sites home page and than three sub categories of that top level category. So while that all makes sense, can't we convince google to concentrate all that link power/juice into just the top level category page? Hopefully bumping it to first page rank? The 5 ranks are 11-15
On-Page Optimization | | absoauto0 -
Main page deindexed by google.
3 days ago our main page('/') has stopped appear in google results. Rest of pages works fine. Even our main page from canadian version of site with similar content works fine. Some times canadian page appears for key word where we had our com version before. But I think this is just result of disappearing com version. Any suggestion were to look? Messages box in google webmastertools is empty. Could this be the question too long page title? PS: Does any way exist to check if we were punished by Google and reason of this? For Bing and Yahoo everything works fine. PPS: We have just found that "cache:our_site.com" and "info:our_site.com" returns in google our_site.ca. So this should be reason of problem. So now we are looking how to fix this.
On-Page Optimization | | ctam0 -
Page URL Hiearchy
So I have read on here that page URL Hiearchy is important. My question is from a search engine standpoint which of the following methods would be the best to use (or another if not listed) COMPACT and naturally hierarchical MountainBiking.com MountainBiking.com/adventures ( a list of the pages below ) MountainBiking.com/adventures/in whistler (for each page) MountainBiking.com/adventures/in utah OR VERBOSE but reptetive MountainBiking.com MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking adventures ( intro + a list of the pages below ) MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures/Mounting Biking adventures in whistler MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures/Mountain Biking Adventures in Utah It seemed like the blog I read suggested the compact form, but it seems to me that the verbose (though admittedly a bit clunky) seems better so far as exact keyword match etc. Experience and or advice on this?
On-Page Optimization | | bThere0