Should I check Use noindex for Tag Archives

[baby_butler2002]

Hi Warriors
I have a page indexed > (http://mysite.com/mypost) and also http://mysite.com/tag/mypost The same post shows up twice, one with /tag/ one without when I search site:http://mysite.com
Is this a duplicate content?? Can I get penalized for this?

In the All in one plugin should I check Use noindex for Tag Archives to avoid this or doesn't matter.
Thanks

[ValentinJed]

I always nofollow tags, archives, terms of use and privacy policy. Sometimes even categories.

[ElMundodelExito]

That's a really good question, sometimes I wonder that too.

Valentin, Why do you nofollow Terms of use and Privacy Policy?

[ElMundodelExito]

I would like to know the opinons of other people about this also.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by ValentinJed

I always nofollow tags, archives, terms of use and privacy policy. Sometimes even categories.

I have been pondering about this lately as well. What to do with pages such as privacy and terms of use that I am using on a lot of different sites and have virtually the same content.

In the 'Platinum SEO' plugin there are 4 options I think for each post/page you create.

index, follow
index, nofollow
noindex, follow
noindex, nofollow

I would have thought the best thing to do for these types of pages is to use 'noindex, follow'. This way the search engines can still go through the page and look at any links pointing out of the page but you are telling them not to index that page because it is of no real value to the site.

What is the general consensus here?

[rahmat]

Originally Posted by baby_butler2002

Hi Warriors
I have a page indexed > (http://mysite.com/mypost) and also http://mysite.com/tag/mypost The same post shows up twice, one with /tag/ one without when I search site:http://mysite.com
Is this a duplicate content?? Can I get penalized for this?

In the All in one plugin should I check Use noindex for Tag Archives to avoid this or doesn't matter.
Thanks

Do not check "Use noindex for Tag Archives"

In this case, your tag pages will be indexed by search engine.

It is not duplicate content, since you only have excerpt on your tag pages. Your blog posts are the main content.

[baby_butler2002]

So my understanding is this will not effect my rank?? can anyone confirm this please

[yukon]

One of my Wordpress sites (as an example) has 159 pages "blog post pages", in GWT (Google Webmaster Tools). GWT says I have 159 out of 159 pages indexed in Google SERPs, that's 100% of my pages are in Google search pages.

When I do a site:domain[.]com I get 253 results in Google search. Those extra pages are both Categories + Tags.

This is how I get all my pages indexed in Google SERPs.

I use a unique canonical tag for every single page on my sites.

Here is my php code (goes in the header.php file):

<?php if ( is_home() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://your_domain_here.com/" />
<?php } ?>

<?php if ( is_category() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://your_domain_here/<?php  = get_the_category(); echo ->category_nicename; ?>/" />
<?php } ?>

<?php if ( is_tag() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo get_tag_link(); ?>" />
<?php } ?>

<?php if ( is_page() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" />
<?php } ?>

<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" />
<?php } ?>

I don't run any seo plugins that will mess with my header.php, I code all my own php/seo.

Bottom line is, I have 159 actual content pages, yet I have 253 pages in Google search.

Check your sites source code when testing, to verify the canonicals are correct.

[ElMundodelExito]

Originally Posted by rahmat

It is not duplicate content, since you only have excerpt on your tag pages. Your blog posts are the main content.

I think this is the information that I was looking for.

[wadeinni]

I still don't think this is definitive. I'm having the same issue right now on two of my blogs. Does anyone know what Google officially recommends?

Originally Posted by ElMundodelExito

I think this is the information that I was looking for.

[gowdemon]

Whenever you ask this question about whether to no-index your category pages and tag archives. You will surely get 2 kinda reply, some will say to index and some will ask you to add no-index. Every single forum and every single thread about this issue, you will find contradicting replies.

I was extremely confused before now have come to my own conclusions and it works.

1.Honestly though, you want Google to crawl your tag archives, or it has no other purpose than improving site navigation. But you need to keep in mind that you need to have only excerpts in the tag archives. If you are having full post on the archives pages its gonna be bad(duplicate content). EXCERPTS are must for tags and category pages if you want Google to index em.

2. Don't add too much tags, it will surely piss Google. My general rule of thumb is 3 to 4. Reusing tags for multiple posts is also recommended. For instance, if this a wordpress post, i will be adding tags like 'no-index tags wordpress','no-index categories wordpress','configure all in one seo plugin'. Or stuff like that, don't add more by mixing the words around, take a few more seconds while writing a post and come up with tags that makes sense.(Experts forgive me, i'm writing this for noobs, so have to be detailed).

3. Categories: If you want to index Categories you need to keep an important thing in mind. See, how much categories you have and how much sub-categories you have.
Say if i have a category called Automobile and a sub category called bikes. If i post any thing is 'bikes'. It will also show in Automobile category page. So if you have lot of sub categories under every primary category, you don't want Google to crawl. So it all comes down to how much categories you have and how the category hierarchy is.

On a side note, i do add no-index to a pages like the general archives(Date based) and author pages, login page.

Hope this helps.

Peace.