Show wordpress "archive links" on blog?

[seomozinator]

I here conflicting reports on whether to show wordpress archive links on the blog or not.  Some say it is important for viewers to see, others say it is not and creates way too many links.  I think both have good points but for SEO purposes, I lean towards removing them.

What do Moz users think?

[Matthew_Edgar]

Hi Charles,

I think this is definitely one of those areas where there really isn't a solid yes/no answer. My personal preference for archive links is to block those directories via robots.txt so that they do not get indexed. Archive pages can lead to duplicate content issues so blocking those for SEO purposes can be helpful. However, I would leave the links on the page for users so long as your visitors are using those pages. I'd recommend monitoring traffic to those pages. If none of your visitors are accessing those archive pages then I'd remove them completely from your site.

That is my two cents anyway. Hope that helps!
Matthew

[brad.s.knutson]

I personally choose not to use them, and I know others do as well.  In some niches, information gets stale so quickly that linking people to your old content may be counter-productive.

If you do choose to have archives linked to from your site, you can choose to noindex them with the WordPress Yoast plugin.

[MikeRoberts]

Much like Matthew, I feel that keeping the Archive links would depend on how else you're interlinking content for users and your personal preference. Odds are that your posts are tagged... so your users can find the older, related content that way. If you want a visual representation of how often you post to your site there's the Calendar widget and other similar plugins that will link to your older posts. You can have a date archive list of posts (but the longer you're around and posting, the more overwhelming that will get and add far too many links) or you can have a dropdown menu pointing to your date archives. Then, of course, there's a Search Bar... let users find what they want that way instead of offering up 4000 different ways to get to those archives. If you think your users will have a need for any of those and it adds to the user experience, then go right ahead with them. If they just clutter up you page and offer up little extra value, then there's no real need for them.

For SEO purposes the archives have little to no value, create duplicate content, and having all those links will just dilute link equity being passed. But its more important to consider its impact on ease of use for visitors. Ask yourself the following: Will this help visitors? Do we need 6 ways to get to the same thing? Is there a better way to show them the same information? Does it make my site more easily navigated or just clutter things up?