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Should I Have No Index, No Follow On Blog Category & Tag Pages?
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At some point in the past I read or was told that No Index, No Follow tags on category and tag pages were a good thing on a standard WordPress blog in order to prevent duplicate content issues.
Is this still true or was it ever true?
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This is the challenge about replying to "fast" questions in a Q&A. How thorough of an answer should be provided. I agree with EGOL in that the category and tag pages could and perhaps even should ideally be built out, offer more content and be indexed. Many sites choose not to take this approach and simply keep these pages merely as indexes or organizers. IF you choose to do such, then I maintain my original advice to use the noindex, follow tag.
With respect to robots.txt, the best file is a blank one. Many sites use the robots.txt far too much. It should be avoided whenever there is another solution available. In this case, it would be a big mistake to use it.
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In total agreement...not allowing the engines to spider/index your category and tag pages would be detrimental to your potential results. However, if you choose to do this, it can be done much easier in the robots.txt file.
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Very much agreed... it really depends on how everything is structured.
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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.
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I agree with John.
You do NOT want to have "no index, no follow" tags on internal links. "noindex" is fine, but "nofollow" is an indication that you do not trust the link. It sends mixed signals to search engines and is not a good idea.
If your category and tag pages have no content and merely contain links to other internal pages, then "Noindex, follow" is the tag you want to use.
An alternative approach, as John mentioned, is to build out those category/tag pages with more content so they offer value to searchers.
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There are a couple of different approaches to take. My personal fave is the "noindex,follow" on tag & category pages. Having said that, I've heard of some people who have great category rankings. That may depend on just how much duplication you have going on between the category/summary page and the actual blog post pages.
The Yoast SEO and All in One SEO plugs are great for WP by the way.
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