Block /tag/ or not?

[MyAllenMedia]

I've asked this question in another area but now i want to ask it as a bigger question. Do we block /tag/ with robots.txt or not. Here's why I ask:

My wordpress site does not block /tag/ and I have many /tag/ results in the top 10 results of Google. Have for months. The question is, does Google see /tag/ on WordPress as duplicate content? SEOMoz says it's duplicate content but it's a tag. It's not really content per say.

I'm all for optimizing my site but Google is not penalizing me for /tag/ results.

I don't want to block /tag/ if Google is not seeing it as duplicate content for only one reason and that's because I have many results in the top 10 on G.

So, can someone who knows more about this weigh in on the subject for I really would like a accurate answer.

Thanks in advance...

[MattAntonino]

You mean "more about this" than me?  I run 3 businesses on 3 Wordpress blogs. I've done the research.  Many of my clients are Wordpress users.  But here's what others think:

• Yoast thinks it's duplicate content: http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/#advancedseo
• David Fuller ranked for tags then didn't: http://www.seomoz.org/q/wordpress-tags-duplicate-content  Same link Dan at Evolving thinks you should noindex tags as well.
• WPMU and Matt Cutts think it's duplicate content: http://wpmu.org/categories-tags-and-how-to-avoid-duplicate-content-on-wordpress/
• How to Tech thinks it's duplicate content: http://howtotechtips.com/remove-wordpress-duplicate-content-search-results-and-tags-from-google/
• As you said, SEOMoz thinks it's duplicate content.
• Many Warriors suggest noindexing tags for dupe content reasons: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-ppc-seo-discussion-forum/373744-wordpress-tags-death-me-duplicate-content-question.html
• 3 other pro SEOs say to noindex here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/solving-link-and-duplicate-content-errors-created-by-wordpress-blog-and-tags

Google search shows

_No results found for _"tags do not create duplicate content".

No results found for "tags are not duplicate content".

And 2.5 million results for tags "duplicate content"

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The short term answer is that you're ranking for them now so leave them be.

The long term answer is it's duplicate content and you need to fix it.

Even if your tag pages don't show the entire post, multiple tag pages show the same excerpt.  This is duplicate content.  By itself - not even talking about the post.

**You said: **_SEOMoz says it's duplicate content but it's a tag. It's not really content per say. _

If you want to see with your own eyes the duplicate content, please post a URL.

[MyAllenMedia]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

So, I suppose the best and proper way to block it is by robots.txt correct?

[David_ODonnell]

I'd say noindex, follow them - many SEO plugins can do this for you, Yoast SEO for example. That way Googs can still crawl them, which may assist with discovery, but won't index them.

[MyAllenMedia]

I use All in one SEO pack and have checked noindex for the tags and the categories and the archives. I suppose it doesn't make any difference if I do it there or in the robots.txt file. Either way their being blocked. Do you know if there's a penalty for having blocked them in WP and the robots file?

[evolvingSEO]

It would be meta noindex. Yoast is my plugin of choice. Happen to have a little article right here if you need to see if its "safe" to remove them from a traffic standpoint.

-Dan

[MyAllenMedia]

Thanks for all the info. Last question, does having a list of monthly archives on the bottom of my site hurt in terms of dup content? I just have at the bottom the month/year and when you click it, it shows all the posts in that month. Should I be removing this or does it matter?