Should I noindex our WordPress Categories?
-
What are the conditions under which we should noindex blog categories?
I'm asking because I want to decided whether or not to noindex our categories. here.
-
I think that your "hub" pages can be category pages and more.
Imagine a hub page for widgets with.... "how to do it" articles down the left column, "widget reviews" down the center column, and tips on "how to enjoy widgets" down the right column.
These could look like your sample page or look like the homepage of Slate.com... or any other news site's homepage or category pages if you have enough content.
-
-
Nice, I think that is going to be killer. Let me know how it works.
-
Exactly. This is what I did for one such page last week.
-
"...use "hub" pages that link to all my other content. "
Yes, exactly. That is actually what we are working on next week. We are going to create hub pages for the entire website. They will link out to all of the best content for their topic that is both "on the blog" and "on the website". These will also link to product pages. We are going to use big juicy images on these hub pages to quickly communicate the topic and make them look colorful and fun.
The order of the items on these pages will be determined by what is getting clicked. So, stuff that is hot with the visitors will move to the top. These hub pages will also link to a few product sales pages that have generous amounts of informative content.
-
Thanks EGOL. Yes, I've realized that I need to have a strategy and to make a conscious decision to index or noindex. My category pages do pull in some SE traffic but I also have pages that compete directly with those category pages. In terms of content those specific pages (articles) are superior to the category pages too.
One other solution is what you did which is delete the category all together and use "hub" pages that link to all my other content.
I'm definitely going to do some reading and learning about this in the next couple weeks.
-
Heydarian, great to see you here.
This is a complex question. The answer of what to index and what to not index varies from situation to situation.
Let me give you examples and a little history for two sites...
**BLOG A ** (an industry news filter, kinda like Metafilter for an industry)
The site that I spend most of my time on has a blog that receives very skimpy posts. "You gotta see this widget". "This widget is really cool". "Acme invents a new green widget". Three years ago, I had post pages, category pages and a home page that all received lots of traffic. Then, after Panda, those skimpy post pages did not perform well and actually damaged the rankings for the entire site - because I had thousands of them. So, I noindexed all of the post pages and even deleted thousands of them a couple times per year because they were mostly "newsy" content. The category pages and homepage still received lots of traffic and the rankings for the rest of the site recovered nicely.
Then, I think google started looking at category pages that link to skimpy content pages and they started performing poorly. So, I changed the blog format to eliminate the post pages and the category pages. Now there is only a big homepage and pagination pages. This blog still is very successful because lots of people continue to visit it directly and subscribe to the feed - but I intentionally abandoned the post pages and category pages because Google has changed.
BLOG B (a product blog for a retail website)
On this blog the posts are detailed product reviews, detailed descriptions of how to do something, detailed quashes of misconceptions, etc. Each post has several photos and 500 to 2000 words. At first I was using about ten category pages, but after a couple years they still were not getting much traffic. Other pages of my site (not on the blog) competed with them and performed more strongly. So, I deleted the category pages from the blog, HOWEVER, I began to generously link to the topic pages on other parts of the website. The results have been positive.
So, the bottom line. I think that you have to look at many things:
-
Are your category pages pulling in traffic? If not, delete them, don't just noindex them unless lots of people are reading them. They are power sinks if you still have them on your site IMO.
-
Do you have superior pages on your site for the same topic? If you do, then give them your attention and promote them on your blog posts.
-
How does google treat pages like yours?
Then you gotta place your bets on a strategy. Hope that it works. Keep watching the analytics.
Good luck.
-
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
-
Rich Snippets in wordpress websites
Hi all, What is the best and easiest plugin to configure and implement on WordPress blog websites? And what is the specific markup recommended for blog/article sites? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | emojo0 -
Robot.txt file issue on wordpress site.
I m facing the issue with robot.txt file on my blog. Two weeks ago i done some development work on my blog. I just added few pages in robot file. Now my complete site seems to be blocked. I have checked and update the file and still having issue. The search result shows that "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more." Any suggestion to over come with this issue
On-Page Optimization | | Mustansar0 -
No meta description on category page
Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.
On-Page Optimization | | WallerD0 -
Duplicate Content from WordPress Category Base?
I recently changed my category base in WordPress and instead of redirecting or deleting the old base, WordPress kept the content up. So I now have duplicate content on two different urls - one on the old category base, one on the new category base. How should I handle this situation? The site is only a couple weeks old, if that makes any difference.
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Duplicate content from category pages?
I have an ecommerce store with different categories for my products. Some products do appear in more than one category, is that an issue even if you end up on the same product page/link? Also, I have a "show all products" category, which I believe creates duplicate content too? What is your take on this? What can I do to solve this? Is it even an issue of duplicate content? All answers are very much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | danielpett0 -
Wordpress category links not working
Hi All of sudden, my category links are not working. Any tips on figuring out what's causing this? Looks like permalink problem with newer wordpress version. I turned off all the plugins see if this cause any problems. Still not being able to find any option. Here's my site http://www.hibebefetaldoppler.com/fetal-doppler-questions-and-answers/ Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | BistosAmerica0 -
Impact of removing category sidebar with keywords?
Our site (a niche financial publication: insideARM.com) requires some more room in the sidebar. We're considering removing the categories (we call them topics) sidebar block, or cutting down the number of items displayed within it. My concern is that we'd be removing a direct link to landing pages for important keyword terms from our most powerful page (the index). Sure, we have the terms listed in the footer, but I am worried that the position change will lower the value of the links. Our users don't really use these links for navigational purposes, which is why it comes up as a potential removed item. Am I wrong to worry about this? Would we be crippling our category pages by doing this?
On-Page Optimization | | insideARM0 -
How to optimize a wordpress blog
I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress. The site is www.athleticfoodie.com. At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website. However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names. Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog? Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images. Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy) Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340