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        4. Removing Media from Wordpress

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        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Removing Media from Wordpress

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        • emasaa
          emasaa last edited by

          I've run the seomoz on page report and found an interesting issue.

          I'm using wordpress and it seems that every picture I add to my articles seem to be added as separate pages to the site.

          I'm having to go to each and every picture and creating a meta tag and description to it. I still get duplicate content issues with the same.

          On my Disqus system, I get the same pictures added just as a page or article would look like.

          What can I do to avoid this?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ThompsonPaul
            ThompsonPaul @evolvingSEO last edited by

            I actually never learned to enjoy coffee, so it's no sacrifice at all. But you'll have to pry my Earl Grey from my cold dead hands 🙂

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • evolvingSEO
              evolvingSEO @ThompsonPaul last edited by

              Ha! I'm trying to quit. _Again. _

              ThompsonPaul 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • ThompsonPaul
                ThompsonPaul @emasaa last edited by

                Great that you got what you were looking for, Alex. Looks like you got a bunch of useful info from the responses. Would be great if you could designate the replies you found were "good answers", both to reward the author and to help future readers of the question.

                And I had a mug of tea in your honour - not going near that coffee stuff 🙂

                Paul

                evolvingSEO 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • evolvingSEO
                  evolvingSEO @emasaa last edited by

                  You're welcome Alex! I am having a coffee right now 😉

                  Thanks so much to Paul and Brett too!

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • emasaa
                    emasaa last edited by

                    I don't know what to say. Sometimes there are easy solutions to seemingly impossible problems.

                    I can't say how grateful I am for you guys and the seomoz community. You have saved me from having to deal with about 10000 pages that had totally stumped me.

                    Have a coffee latte on me and thank you.

                    Alex

                    evolvingSEO ThompsonPaul 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • evolvingSEO
                      evolvingSEO last edited by

                      Hi Alex

                      What both Brett and Paul said is correct. Let me break it down for you a little more.

                      When Adding Media

                      • when you add your image - DON'T select "attachment page" - screenshot

                      Here's what each option does;

                      • custom URL - you can link the image to anything you want - an external link, another internal post, or to the source of the image itself if you need to attribute credit.
                      • media file - this is for if you click on the image, it just opens the actual image file. this is totally harmless, and in some cases many people like it, as it allows you to see the image larger. this is the one I usually choose by default.
                      • attachment page - that's the one giving you problems. it creates a new page for every image. so I never use this choice.
                      • none - no link as used at all. you can't click on the picture or anything.

                      Noindex Media

                      With the Yoast SEO plugin, you can also noindex media pages. See this screenshot for how to do so.

                      The means, no matter if you still end up with some media/photo pages indexed and missing titles etc, it won't be an issue.

                      Recap

                      OK - here's your steps;

                      1. Moving forward, don't select "attachment page" when uploading media.
                      2. Use Yoast to noindex media pages.
                      3. Use Yoast to add a title and description template to media pages, in case they still get indexed.

                      Hope that helps!

                      -Dan

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • ThompsonPaul
                        ThompsonPaul last edited by

                        This situation is quite easy to resolve if you are using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin.

                        Under the plugin's settings, go to the Permalink Settings page. The second section down offers the option to "Redirect attachment URLs to parent post URL." Put a checkmark in the box, click Save, and from now on, those individual image-only pages will automatically redirect back to the post on which they appear.

                        No idea if the same option is available in other SEO plugins - I've so long standardised on Yoast's plugin I'm not up to date on the others any more.

                        Brett's point about changing where images link will also work, but the plugin approach above means you don't have to go back an retroactively edit all your images.

                        Hope that helps?

                        Paul

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • BrettCollins
                          BrettCollins last edited by

                          I think when you are adding images to your site, you are setting them to Link to: Current Url rather than Media File or None. If you go back and edit your old images and make sure they are linking to the image or have no iink at all, I think you should be fine. Hope this helps!

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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