Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. No-index all the posts of a category

    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.

    No-index all the posts of a category

    On-Page Optimization
    2
    5
    3243
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • salvyy
      salvyy last edited by

      Hi everyone!

      I would like no-indexing all the posts of a specific category of my wordpress site.

      The problem is that the structure of my URL is composed without /category/: www.site-name.ext/date/post-name/
      so without /category-name/

      Is possibile to disallow the indexing of all the posts of the category via robots.txt?

      Using Yoast Plugin I can put the no-index for each post, but I would like to put the no-index (or disallow/) a time for all the post of the category.

      Thanks in advance for your help and sorry for my english.

      • Mike
      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • salvyy
        salvyy last edited by

        Sure, without /category/ in the URL structure I can't block Googlebot using the robots.txt

        No problem, now I can use the noindex for all the posts.

        Thank you so much Oleg.

        Regards,

        • MIke
        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • OlegKorneitchouk
          OlegKorneitchouk @salvyy last edited by

          With that code, Google won't index any pages within that particular category.

          Unfortunately, without a specific folder pattern, you cannot block via robots.txt

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • salvyy
            salvyy last edited by

            Hi Oleg, thanks for your help.

            I did just some tests and does it seems to work fine.

            Do you think is possible to block Google bot to indexing all the post of a category?in this way (disallow/ in the robots.txt) I could save the Google crawle budget for the pages of my site that I want to index.

            Thanks a lot for your help Oleg.

            Have a nice weekend,- Mike

            OlegKorneitchouk 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • OlegKorneitchouk
              OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

              Wordpress Admin > Posts > Categories > Edit the category you want to noindex > Set "always noindex" for "Noindex this category" box

              EDIT: looks like that just noindexes the actual category page.

              Here is a workaround I found...

              1. Find the category ID (WP Admin > Posts > Categories > Edit the category you want to noindex > look at URL for the tag_ID # (this is the category ID))

              2. Edit your theme header and include:

              <?php if (is_single() && in_category(array(###)))  { 
              echo '';
              } ?>
              

              where ### is the category ID

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • TAT100

                Virtual URL Google not indexing?

                canonical duplicate site structure url issue

                Dear all, We have two URLs: The main URL which is crawled both by GSC and where Moz assigns our keywords is: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/ The second one is called a virtual url by our developpers: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/signedandunsignedprintsforsale/ This is currently not indexed by Google. We have been linking to the second URL and I am unable to see if this is passing juice/anything on to the main one /banksy/ Is it a canonical? The /banksy/ is the one that is being picked up in serps/by Moz and worry that the two similar URLs are splitting the signal. Should I redirect from the second to the first? Thank you

                On-Page Optimization | | TAT100
                0
              • Safxmed

                Filter By Category bad for seo?

                on page optimization filter by category

                Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
                Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You

                On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
                0
              • Snowdune

                Can I replace categories with a static page

                Hello there. I want to replace all of WordPress categories with static pages so that users see a well designed and constructed presentation of all the articles within each topic instead of just a long list of excerpts. I've already done this with 2 categories and although it is hard work I can't help feeling it is a much better thing for my users. However, I'm concerned that I am embarking on this project without being totally sure that it makes sense from an Seo point of view, or whether there are any downsides I haven't thought of? My idea is that the  WordPress categories are set to noindex and nofollow. Search engines should find all of my static category pages and all of the content within each category will be spidered from there instead. Just to be sure you know what I mean here is a link to a normal category - https://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/category/consumer/ and here is my static page replacement for it - https://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/consumer-rights-appliances/ Both pages contain links to all articles within the category except the one generated by WordPress is just a long paginated list, and my replacement is a proper category page, which is hopefully far more useful . Can someone please confirm that there are no downsides to this strategy? 🙂

                On-Page Optimization | | Snowdune
                1
              • Red_educativa

                Google is indexing urls with parameters despite canonical

                Hello Moz, Google is indexing lots of urls despite the canonical in my site. Those urls are linked all over the site with parameters like ?, and looks like Google is indexing them despite de canonical. Is Google deciding to index those urls because they are linked all over the site? The canonical tag is well implemented.

                On-Page Optimization | | Red_educativa
                0
              • SamCUK

                How To Change Wordpress Category Title

                My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?

                On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
                0
              • editabletext

                Does Google index dynamically generated content/headers, etc.?

                To avoid dupe content, we are moving away from a model where we have 30,000 pages, each with a separate URL that looks like /prices/<product-name>/<city><state>,  often with dupe content because the product overlaps from city to city, and it's hard to keep 30,000 pages unique, where sometimes the only distinction is the price & the city/state.</state></city></product-name> We are moving to a model with around 300 unique pages, where some of the info that used to be in the url will move to the page itself (headers, etc.) to cut down on  dupe content on those unique 300 pages. My question is this. If we have 300 unique-content pages with unique URL's, and we then put some dynamic info (year, city, state) into the page itself, will Google index this dynamic content? The question behind this one is, how do we continue to rank for searches for that product in the city-state being searched without having that info in the URL? Any best practices we should know about?

                On-Page Optimization | | editabletext
                0
              • Comunicare

                Our sitemap is not indexed well

                Hey there, Hope you guys can help. We get the following error: Nested indexing. Another Sitemap index refers to the index of sitemaps. The thing is that we cant find the error they are talking about. Thanks!!!!

                On-Page Optimization | | Comunicare
                0
              • oneresult

                Do we need to use the canonical tag on non-indexed pages?

                Hi there I have been working in / learning SEO for just over a year, coming from a non dev background, so there are still plenty of the finer points on-page points I am working on. Slowly building up confidence and knowledge with the great SEOMoz as a reference! We are working on this site http://www.preciseuk.co.uk (we are still tweaking the tags and content by the way- not finished yet!) Because a lot of the information is within accordians, a page is generated for each tab of the accordian expanded, for example: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php is the main page but then you also have: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=0 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=1 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=2 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=3 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=4 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=5 All of which are in the same file. According to the crawl test, these pages are not indexed. Because it is all in one file, should we add the canonical tag to it, so that this is replicated in all the tab pages that are generated? eg. Thanks in advance for your help! Liz OneResult
                liz@oneresult.co.uk

                On-Page Optimization | | oneresult
                2

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.