Different WP Taxonomies seen as duplicate content

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Hey guys,

We're seeing Moz report "duplicate" content on pages like: mysite.com/interesting-category/ and mysite.com/interesting-tag.

Why exactly is this, and is there something that we should do about this? Obviously some of the same posts will intersect on pages like category, tag, author pages.

Thanks

[donsilvernail]

Hi Andy,

I recommend using tags or categories not both on your WordPress website. You see, they are essentially the same thing. A Tag or Category will create an archive page once it the taxonomy is created. All posts or content that is either categorized or tagged with will display on the tag or categories archive page.

So if you have a post called Why I use Moz, and that post is categorized as SEO and Tagged as Best SEO Practices. You just created 2 new archive pages with the same post. Creating duplicate content. Now because these archive pages are in chronological order, new posts that are tagged and categorized using the taxonomies given above, the archive pages will always be duplicated because the content never differs.

To combat this use one or the other. I prefer categories. You will not get an extra SEO benefit for tagging your posts or categorizing them. This is for user experience and will have little effect on your ranking. However if you use tags and categories wrong you can get lower rankings for duplicated content.

Thanks,

Don

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Thanks for the reply Don. Solid points, all of them, however not really ideal case-scenario, not solution.

Tags are more helpful than Categories on a per-page basis (especially on our end) so we'd rather use those. This presents a diff problem, because using 4 tags on a post would duplicate it across the tax page for all 4 tags OFC. I'm really curious what others think of this as well, simply giving upgood user functionality doesn't seem to be a smart strategy in my eyes. I would probably go ahead and noindex nofollow all other taxonomies except on.

By the way - this situation happened with a category vs author page. So not even cat vs tag. Even more annoying!

[donsilvernail]

Once again, Authors on the site will have their own archive pages as well. A chronological list of all posts by that author. So if you tag or categorize without purpose and the tags and categories have no separation you will have duplicate content across all three types of archive pages.

Here is a good post explaining tags and categories. http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/categories-vs-tags-seo-best-practices-which-one-is-better/

Don,

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Andy

There is no problem using tags and categroies on a Wordpress site as long as they are handled correctly with whichever SEO plugin you are using.

Categories - Should be seen as a natural hierarchy for the site so I would fill in the Meta titles and description and add some fleshy text to those page so that the you are describing the content for the user. It's also great for SEO and sets those pages aside from others on the site as the content is unique - 300 words plus, (preferably a single line of text at the top and a beefier section below)

Tags - these are a pain in the butt and I would simply noindex/follow them so that they do not show up in SERPS. I see these as simply an extra form of grouping for the user. They generally create skinny content pages of little value and should be completely downgraded.

There is often confusion between functionality and SEO as they rarely go hand in hand. You need to present the best view for your reader, user, customer - that is the priority. At the same time you have tools like noindex and canonicals to get you round the problems of skinny content and duplication.

If you stick to the one page/one keyword (or tight, contextually similar group of keywords) then you will be fine.

When it comes to author archives I noindex them and when it comes to article snippets then the shortest one available or none at all - as every line of text that is repeated on different pages is duplication.

Regards Nigel

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Thank you so much for the detailed debrief Nigel. Very helpful!