Too many Tags and Categories what should I do to clean this up?
-
Hello, Everyone! I am trying to do a clean up for one of my client sites. I'm noticing that the Categories and tags are way out of hand. It looks like random tags and categories were just added because they could be added. Are all of these tags and categories contributing to duplicate content? And if so What method should I go about to cleaning this up? The only thing that seems logical to me is rel=canonical.
Thank you so much!
-
Hi Obi
Yes - a rather annoying new feature of MOZ which says that a noindex is an error when it clearly isn't. You have done exactly the right thing to avoid a ton of duplicate content. Just ignore the warnings.
I can understand the ethos - but are you going to go through thousands of tags and canonicalise them? no, me neither. I have seen huge success no indexing tags on massive websites. It instantly sorts out the problem and frankly I never even click on tags - they just take up space in Google for no reason.
Regards
Nigel
-
I have a related question to this - I have used the Yoast SEO plugin in WP to set all tags, categories and date sorts to noindex for the reasons most have stated here. However, now MOZ flags me with 1.7k meta index warnings because of it. Since it was intentional, anyone know of a way to turn off this warning in MOZ?
-
I always no index tags but keep categories. Then add unique content to each category heading to help with SEO. Some WP themes display the content, others don't. The problem with tags is they have a habit of appending themselves to all versions of a page so explode useless and low content pages.
It would take an age to caonicalise tags on most sites so in my opinion they are essentially worthless. You can always use MOZ to check the page ranks before deciding.
-
Sounds like you're probably using WP, if so, I'd highly recommend this plugin to handle your category and tag pages. I made the same observation you did not too long ago and went on a mission to figure out the best solution, and noindexing these pages with that plugin is what I came up with.
-
Thank you so much, Martijn! I appreciate the reply. I will go ahead and give this a go because this is a mess and needs to be cleaned up.
-
Hello!
Here is a link about the topic: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/categories-vs-tags-seo-best-practices-which-one-is-better/
You can check it and edit your website with the advices
-
Hey!
Usually tag pages are pretty useless and they could be removed if they don't provide any additional information. In your case I would make sure to see if there is any overlap between tags and categories and accordingly to that remove the tags. You could use the canonical tags, but that's mostly putting band aid on something that is fundamentally broken I'd say.
Martijn.
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
-
Should I no-index categories of my blog?
I have blog with lots of articles & it also has lots of categories. These categories are currently indexed in the google and moz showing missing title and description for these categories. Should I place no-index tag in all the categories or leave it as it is?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jhakasseo0 -
Using cononical tag instead of 301
I've got a bit of an odd situation... My business partner and I split up, and he's going to keep the company name. The website that I built for the company has some links to it, and I've managed to build up some DA and PA. I want to get the link juice over to my new website. My former partner doesn't care about the link juice, he just wants a website that he can show people. SO, I can't do a 301 or 302, because that would take down the existing site. Can I just use a canonical tag that refers link power to my new website? Would this be harmful in any way? What should I do to accomplish getting the link power without a redirect, and without contacting each person who has given us a backlink?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zing-Marketing0 -
DAs dropped for many pages?
I recently noticed that the domain authorities dropped by 5 or 6 points for us and for our competitors. And for many other pages that I check regularly. Was the algorithm changed or is it just me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FCRMediaLietuva0 -
Categories which are frequently empty
We have a medium traffic site (www.boatshed.com) which sells used boats, the site does fairly well for popular search phrases, often ranking on first page. A common way for people to search is by boat manufacturer, for example "sunseeker for sale" or "sunseeker 33 for sale". To service those searches, we have search results page with URL's like: "/used-boats-for-sale/sunseeker" and "/used-boats-for-sale/sunseeker/33" (i.e. make and model). This is fine for common makes but we have a lot of makes where we might have just one which, when sold, then leaves the page with no boats to show. It could then be just weeks till we get another one or sometimes years. Once a manufacturer has no boats for sale, we automatically remove the link to that page from the site and from the sitemap. These pages are now being flagged as soft 404s in Webmaster tools. Currently these pages still work and just show a "No results found" message. I am unsure of how to deal with these pages. Options as I see them: Add a "no-index, follow" tag to the pages and continue to remove them from the sitemap. My concern is that when we do get a new boat for sale, the page will not rank again or take a long time to be re-indexed. Add value to the 'no results found' page - for example, show listings for similar boats. If I do this (which makes sense from a usability perspective), would it be acceptable to leave these pages with an "index" tag? 404 them - my concern being this basically says "this page has been permanently removed" when actually it will probably have content again soon. 301 redirect to a page of similar boats with a message that we don't have any of that specific type at the moment.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbscreative0 -
Does a UTM tag influence the linkvalue?
Will Google value a link with a UTM tag the same as a clean link without a UTM tag? I should say that a UTM tag link is not a natural link so the linkvalue is zero. Anyone any idea how to look at this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TT_Vakantiehuizen0 -
URL structure for categories, sub categories and products
Hi, I'm looking for some advice about URL hierarchy and the best way to structure URLs for SEO with regards to categories, sub categories and product pages. The way the site is set up displays the URLs as such, example: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /badge-accessories/plastic-wallets/ 3. /badge-accessories/plastic-wallets/clear-flexible-wallets/ I am questioning whether it would be best to keep it like this (which the site developers are suggesting) or change to something like: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /plastic-wallets/ 3. /clear-plastic-flexible-wallets/ Or something like: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /plastic-wallets/ 3. /plastic-wallets/clear-flexible-wallets/ Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kerry_Jones0 -
Moving categories to new domain
Hello Mozzers , I'm trying to find best possible solution for this situation. So there is a website (e-commerce) and since it's grew up too much we are looking to move several categories on different domain. The reason for this is that we introduce completely different product group (example: we have products that are related to watches and everything related to watch industry but now we introduce leather products: wallets, bags etc). Do you think it is worth it to move new categories to new domain in order to better target this product group? In case of positive answer which is the best way to do it - 301 redirect or leave the products on this site and build a new site with slightly different product description and names? Regards, Nenad
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Uniline0 -
Wordpress Tags vs. Categories(looking to restructure things)
Just looking for some advice on this topic. I know it's much debated but it seems the consensus is that having some broad categories and more defined tags is optimal. The issue with my site is that it is very broad in nature. We're profiling and interviewing all types of careers. The site is www.jobshadow.com for reference. Up until now I haven't used Wordpress Tags at all. I've just been using categories(i.e. 9-5 type jobs, salaried jobs, hourly jobs, jobs in medicine, etc). I've probably got way too many categories. They are being counted as links on every post page which pushes me way overboard on links per page. -Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on best practices for my site. -Also, none of the categories themselves are really pulling in any SEO traffic so switching those wouldn't be a big deal. Just looking for the best way to help users browse the site and the growing number of content. And rom what I hear Tags can pull in some random/long tail traffic pretty easily if done right. Look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | astahl110