Index or Noindex Wordpress Categories?

[ChaseH]

I've read a few different opinions on this, but I'm still unclear as to the best practice. I use my categories more like tags. Let's say I write a post about  about seo, local marketing, and indexing. I would use the categories "seo"+"marketing"+"indexing".  Therefore, that same post will show up in all three category pages. If these category pages are all set to be indexed, what impact does that have on my post being indexed? Should I noindex all of the categories except for the main ones to avoid too much duplicate content? Or do you recommend noindexing all of the categories? I know some seo plugins make this easy to do (I'm using Yoast).

The only reason I'm hesitant to noindex all categories is because some of them rank well for their subject. I also already tried noindexing about a month ago and lost a lot of blog traffic, so I reversed it. Now some of my category pages have overtaken my post  rankings, which makes it harder for the reader to find the content, but my overall blog traffic is back up.

With my situation, what is the best thing to do long term? I just started using my blog a lot more so I want to know that I have it setup correctly. Thanks in advance!

[deltasystems]

I've never understood the argument that category pages should be noindexed. They have always been an excellent source of traffic for me, too.

It's said that it could be considered low quality content. If you treat your category pages as just another page in your website (a healthy category introduction/description does wonders) it can be a nexus for broad search terms.

As an example of where this works very well, I have one category in a computer networking blog I have about TCP/IP. It's part of a series that explains the protocol, and the category page essentially is the 'guide' page, linking to each step in the guide to learning TCP/IP. I have the excerpts used only in category pages, so each category page also has unique preview content for each post.

Your specific worry is that you have posts in multiple categories. The thing is, there won't be the same posts in every category page so there will be a mashup of content. Some duplicate content is not bad. In addition to the category description, you'll be fine so long as you don't have synonymous categories.

You're fine in keeping them indexed. I would think you are crazy if you did otherwise

[ChaseH]

Thanks for your quick response. So are you saying I should only have the excerpts on category pages? Right now I have them on the main blog page and category pages. On your main blog do you just have title links/pictures?

And I'm glad to finally hear that category pages should remain indexed from someone.

[deltasystems]

You don't have to do what I did. I have websites that don't do this, and they are just fine.

I'm not sure what your current setup is, but if it's not a lot of work for you, it's definitely worthwhile to do my method. It won't make or break you, but it'll help for sure.

[ChaseH]

Well I've been wanting to redesign my main blog page anyways - make it slightly different from the category and archive pages, so if it'll help I'll do it.

Just to clarify, how does your blog homepage differ from the category pages? No excerpts on the homepage?

[deltasystems]

Correct! I show a teaser preview from the actual content on the homepage. The excerpt I write as a brief summary of what the article is about. Best of luck!