Tags and categories help

10 replies
  • SEO
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I use WordPress SEO Yoast.

Can anyone tell me if I should select the no-index,follow option in Taxonomies tab for categories and tags?

I have 2 posts on my blog at the minute and they are in the same category which has a link on the main navigation bar, and they have the same tag. So I have duplicate content basically.

What do I do in this situation so I don't get penalized.

What settings do I need to use with yoast?

Anyone experienced in this situation.

Thanks.
Aaron.
#categories #tags
  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    I index my categories but noindex my tags.

    If your articles are different they can still be in the same category and the same tag, without creating duplicate content. Any article on a WordPress site can be accessed via a number of routes: tags, categories, day archives, month archives, author archives, etc - this is not duplicate content, it's the same content on the same site being accesed via different routes.

    Use the canonical tag to tell the search engines which of these links they should take as the primary link. As long as you check the canonical tag option Yoast will automatically assign that to your article when you publish it.

    This article goes through how to use categories and tags on WordPress:

    Optimise WordPress with Categories and Tags

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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  • Profile picture of the author aaronjunited
    Thanks for that, helped me a lot.

    Where do i check the canonical tag option?
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    I'm not that familiar with Yoast, but it will be one of the options in the settings screen (it will probably be just a check box).

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I don't even have WP-Tag pages, they serve no purpose & don't do anything that the Category page isn't already doing.
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  • Profile picture of the author aaronjunited
    I think your very wrong, they may not benefit you in SEO, but they are extremely effective for your visitors finding content on your site easily.

    At the end of the day, if you are providing quality content and the visitor can easily find other content and stay on your site, then you solve most problems.

    Google will reward you if you make the experience easy and enjoyable for your visitors, and that will lead to natural sharing of your content.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by aaronjunited View Post

      I think your very wrong, they may not benefit you in SEO, but they are extremely effective for your visitors finding content on your site easily.

      At the end of the day, if you are providing quality content and the visitor can easily find other content and stay on your site, then you solve most problems.

      Google will reward you if you make the experience easy and enjoyable for your visitors, and that will lead to natural sharing of your content.
      No, Yukon is right. Tags are useless and only potentially hurt your SEO efforts by diluting the power of your links on your pages.

      As far as user experience, if your users need tags to find your content, your site sucks and needs to be redesigned.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by aaronjunited View Post

      I think your very wrong, they may not benefit you in SEO, but they are extremely effective for your visitors finding content on your site easily.

      At the end of the day, if you are providing quality content and the visitor can easily find other content and stay on your site, then you solve most problems.

      Google will reward you if you make the experience easy and enjoyable for your visitors, and that will lead to natural sharing of your content.
      That just muddles up a site/page having multiple Tag & Category links all pointing to the same content on different pages.

      One category link is way more focused & less confusing for traffic, then you have the advantage of link sculpting (say what?) by having each page only be in a single category.

      Having traffic running all over the site clicking multiple links that look like they go to different content when in reality they all point to the same content is a bad user experience.

      Keep it simple. You give traffic too many options & they'll never follow a call to action (conversion).
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    Interesting discussion..!

    For me, the value of tags grows as the content on the site grows.

    I often just use categories when I start up a new site. But as the amount of content grows I start to use tags to link more closely related articles together.

    I think of categories and tags as a fling cabinet and folders. So if I have a category called WordPress on a site I might initially not have any tags at all. But as the number of articles on WordPress grows I would make a tag for Themes and a tag for Plugins.

    At that point all articles I write on WordPress themes would go into the WordPress category (filing cabinet) and the Themes tag (folder). Articles on plugins would go into the WordPress category and Plugins tag.

    I do keep the number of categories on any of my sites to less than 10. There will probably be more than 10 tags (if each category had 2 relevant tags that would be 20 for starters), but restricting the number of categories keeps the site focused and makes it easier for readers to find their way around.

    I index my categories (many of my category pages figure well in the search results) but I noindex my tag pages because indexing tag pages does dilute the effectiveness of the SEO.

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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