Tags, Categories, & Duplicate Content

[bradhodson]

Looking for some advice on a duplicate content issue that we're having that definitely isn't unique to us.

See, we are allowing all our tag and category pages, as well as our blog pagination be indexed and followed, but Moz is detecting that all as duplicate content, which is obvious since it is the same content that is on our blog posts.

We've decided in the past to keep these pages the way they are as it hasn't seemed to hurt us specifically and we hoped it would help our overall ranking. We haven't seen positive or negative signals either way, just the warnings from Moz.

We are wondering if we should noindex these pages and if that could cause a positive change, but we're worried it might cause a big negative change as well.

Have you confronted this issue? What did you decide and what were the results?

Thanks in advance!

[Leonie-Kramer]

Hi Bradjn, With duplicate content i would go for the use of canonicals.  Give the original page and its duplicates the same cannonical url, so searchengines will know what's the original and (most of the time) won't see it as duplicate.

Here some more about  duplicate content and also canonicals: http://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

I can't give you a good answer about using noindex or this wil be a positive change. Did you check in webmastertools about duplicates? or only MOZ?

Grtz, Leonie

[EricaMcGillivray]

It's highly recommend that you noindex category, tag, archives, and author pages in WordPress. (I assume you're using WP; though there are many similar blogging platforms out there.) The reason is because these pages come across as thin and/or duplicate content, and you are risking getting hit by Panda. Now that doesn't always happen. My own personal blog had these pages indexed for a very long time, and I didn't have any problems. But I also didn't seen any problems when I did deindex them. But I don't get a ton of traffic, and I'm sure traffic to, popularity of site, and competitive nature all factor into Google's radar.

[DonnaDuncan]

Erica, shouldn't the decision to noindex category pages be done on a case-by-case basis? If the blog has few posts, or if posts aren't updated frequently, then the chance of category pages being viewed as thin increases and it would make sense to noindex them.

If, on the other hand:

• category pages have different content from that of the main blog page;
• the main blog and category pages use excerpts;
• tag, archive and author pages are noindexed;
• and frequent updates;

doesn't it then make a case to index category pages? They can be a rich source of long-tail keywords and therefore a good draw for new entrants to the site as explained in this earlier Q&A post.

[bradhodson]

We do upgrade our blog twice a week and keep a pretty good spread across our categories and tags.

The hope is that we'll have the boost you mentioned, in long-tail and whatnot, but the fear is that it could hurt us (like Erica mentioned above).

Like Erica, we haven't seen any negativity, but we wonder if we're being affected without even knowing it and by setting them to noindex we could potentially get a boost. It's a dream, we just don't want the opposite to happen.

[bradhodson]

This is certainly what we've heard and it's good to hear of a real case where you went from indexing to noindexing. My bet is that we would have the same result, my hope is that we would have an increase over time, and my fear is that we'll have a decrease.

[EricaMcGillivray]

You can either choose to deindex pages one by one or deindex the whole subfolder.

Since usually category pages have the same content as or a preview of the content on your other pages, this doesn't affect your long tail traffic as that traffic will go to the other pages. Usually the problem with category pages is that the content's thin or duplicate. Now, you can make content just for category pages and keep them to drive traffic to. I worked in e-commerce pre-Moz and we wanted to rank/land people on category pages, such as women's shirts, and made unique, solid content for those page.

[DonnaDuncan]

That makes sense. But I really want to make sure I (and others) understand because of EGOL's earlier referenced comments (June 2011).

"If I kept my category pages out of the search indexes I would be walking away from hundreds of search engine visitors per minute.

Do analytics to see how much traffic is coming into these pages from search, who is linking to them, how much revenue they earn and also consider their future traffic potential.

Its not good to follow generalized advice blindly." and (February 2012) ...

"I have two wordpress blogs and category pages are where most of my search engine traffic enters.  Some bring in thousands per month.  Most of my post pages bring in very little traffic.

If you are not having any problem with duplicate content at present maybe it would be a good idea to allow indexing of the main page, the post pages and the category pages.  They if you do have a duplicate content problem you can remove from the index the pages that bring in the least amount of traffic."

So is the key then, ensuring the category pages contain unique content in addition to whatever else is on the category pages? I would have thought the mere fact that you're creating a unique combination of unique content by the grouping excerpts from identically tagged posts might have been enough. That content would also get updated each time a new post gets published.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this Erica.

[EricaMcGillivray]

EGOL is definitely correct that those pages can hold a ton of value if a brand/company has the time/resources/bandwidth to optimize them. Most don't, so it's better to noindex than have duplicate and/or thin content category pages. But if you can and will optimize, do it!

[bradhodson]

Thanks Erica.

We're deindexing the tags pages for now and going to see what happens. If all goes well, we might deindex the category pages as well.

Thanks!

[DonnaDuncan]

Erica, Thank you for sticking with this and continuing to share your thoughts. It's very helpful and much appreciated!