• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        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.

        Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?

        On-Page Optimization
        6
        8
        36241
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • KMack
          KMack last edited by

          I am new to SEOmoz & trying to work my way through the ca-trillion errors that have been found on my site, but for each one I want to ensure that I am helping rather than harming my site.

          The tool has (as a "notice") said that my category pages & Archives are NO-INDEX, is this how these pages should be dealt with?

          In addition, the crawler has also (as a "warning error) discovered that my categories, and Archives do not have a meta description..is this of great importance for non indexed pages of this type?

          Thanks so much to the SEOmoz forum members, you have so far been of invaluable help to me.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • brightvessel
            brightvessel Subscriber @EGOL last edited by

            Hi all,

            I think it is first important to look at your category structure. Use categories as main categories and tags as subcategories. If you have 1 post, in 5 different main categories, you will then be duplicated in some cases the same info. I keep all my posts in one main category which I do index and then all the subcategories as (tags) which I have no-index on. Also, Yoast SEO is my favorite plugin. Just plain easy to use.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • GardenBeet
              GardenBeet @UplinkSpyder last edited by

              with hindsight I should have redesigned the blog pages to convert. The potential spend of the lost traffic was not harnessed

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • UplinkSpyder
                UplinkSpyder Subscriber @GardenBeet last edited by

                Wow, I'm chiming in almost three years later, but I think my question is pertinent. When you stopped indexing your category pages...did sales "happen" on your main website? I ask because you wrote that sales don't happen on your blog. I'm just wondering why sales are not happening on your blog and if it's a matter of funneling or the lack thereof?

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

                  my blog category pages began to rank higher for key converting search terms than my main website  - not good - sales dont happen on my blog.

                  So I stopped the indexing of my category pages....guess what happened?..my website is back to position 1 BUT my blog traffic reduced by half.....so consider EGOL's warning prior to making a decision

                  UplinkSpyder 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • EGOL
                    EGOL last edited by

                    Most of the search engine traffic that enters my blog comes in through category pages.  It would be a huge mistake for me to block them.  However, depending upon the topic area of your site the category pages might have a different importance.

                    brightvessel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • KMack
                      KMack @Anthony_Trollope last edited by

                      Thank you very much for your answer.

                      I do have the all in one plugin installed, and my excerpts are not originally written, but taken from the articles so i will leave it no index.

                      Thanks again!

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

                        Hey Kevin,

                        Welcome to SEOmoz!

                        Since you are running a Wordpress set-up I would recommend downloading the All-in-one SEO plug-in. It's one of the most popular plugins for Wordpress installs because it helps you with your SEO configuration. Chances are you've probably already got this installed but I figured I would mention it in any case.

                        As to the no-index configuration of your category and archive pages; I would definitely recommend no-index on the archive pages because otherwise you run the risk of duplicate content, plus you don't really want those archive pages ranking for any of the keywords you are targeting.

                        For the category pages; if you are giving each post a unique excerpt and thus making the category pages unique in their own right, I would probably take the no-index tag off if only to aid link juice flow between categories and individual posts. If on the other hand you are not writing a unique excerpt for each post and instead showing the whole post or a modified version of the original, you run the risk of duplicating your content and this will greatly impact your ability to rank for the terms you are trying to target. In this case, keep the setup as it is.

                        Hope these points help.

                        Best,
                        Anthony

                        KMack 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                        • 1 / 1
                        • First post
                          Last post

                        Browse Questions

                        Explore more categories

                        • Moz Tools

                          Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                        • SEO Tactics

                          Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                        • Community

                          Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                        • Digital Marketing

                          Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                        • Research & Trends

                          Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                        • Support

                          Connect on product support and feature requests.

                        • See all categories

                        Related Questions

                        • mbmozmb

                          What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?

                          Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?

                          On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb
                          0
                        • Myles92

                          Q&A Page Titles

                          Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles.  Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long.  Here is an example: Page Title:  My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title.  My question is what hurts SEO value more:  the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?

                          On-Page Optimization | | Myles92
                          1
                        • speedbird1229

                          NOINDEX, FOLLOW on product page - how about images indexing?

                          Hi, Since we have a lot of similar products with duplicate descriptions, I decided to NOINDEX, FOLLOW most of these different variants which have duplicate content. However, I guess it would be useful in marketing terms if Google image search still listed the images of the products in image search. How does the image search of Google actually work - does it read the NOINDEX on the product page and therefore skip the image also or is the image search completely dependent on the ALT tag of any image found on our site? Thanks!

                          On-Page Optimization | | speedbird1229
                          0
                        • SpaMedica

                          Duplicate Content with ?Page ID's in WordPress

                          Hi there, I'm trying to figure out the best way to solve a duplicate content problem that I have due to Page ID's that WordPress automatically assigns to pages. I know that in order for me to resolve this I have to use canonical urls but the problem for me is I can't figure out the URL structure. Moz is showing me thousands of duplicate content errors that are mostly related to Page IDs For example, this is how a page's url should look like on my site Moz is telling me there are 50 duplicate content errors for this page. The page ID for this page is 82 so the duplicate content errors appear as follows and so on. For 47 more pages. The problem repeats itself with other pages as well. My permalinks are set to "Post Name" so I know that's not an issue. What can I do to resolve this? How can I use canonical URLs to solve this problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

                          On-Page Optimization | | SpaMedica
                          0
                        • vivekrathore

                          Is it convinient to use No-Index, Follow to my Paginated Pages?

                          I have a website http://www.naukrigulf.com and it has a lot of Paginated pages on its SERP and most of paginated pages are getting indexed in Google SERP. Is it beneficial to use No-Index, Follow to keep the link equity to main (first page),  although we have already used rel=next and rel=prev. If Answer is "yes" is their any harm by using no-index, follow with rel=next, rel=prev.

                          On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore
                          0
                        • odegi

                          301 Redirect to product page or category?

                          We manage an ecommerce website that sells health products. A few products have now been discontinued. I’m just wondering what would be the best practice in this case. Should we 301 redirect to a similar product or to a similar category page? ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!

                          On-Page Optimization | | odegi
                          0
                        • VinceWicks

                          How to properly remove pages and a category from Google's index

                          I want to remove this category http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ and all the pages in that category (e.g. http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/7386.html ) from Google's index. I used the following string in the "Reomval URS" section in Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/* is that correct or I better use http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ ? Thanks in advance.

                          On-Page Optimization | | VinceWicks
                          0
                        • MarieA

                          301 redirects from several sub-pages to one sub-page

                          Hi! I have 14 sub-pages i deleted earlier today. But ofcourse Google can still find them, and gives everyone that gives them a go a 404 error. I have come to the understading that this wil hurt the rest of my site, at least as long as Google have them indexed. These sub-pages lies in 3 different folders, and i want to redirect them to a sub-page in a folder number 4. I have already an htaccess file, but i just simply cant get it to work! It is the same file as i use for redirecting trafic from mydomain.no to www.mydomain.no, and i have tried every kind of variation i can think of with the sub-pages. Has anyone perhaps had the same problem before, or for any other reason has the solution, and can help me with how to compose the htaccess file? 🙂 You have to excuse me if i'm using the wrong terms, missing something i should have seen under water while wearing a blindfold, or i am misspelling anything. I am neither very experienced with anything surrounding seo or anything else that has with internet to do, nor am i from an englishspeaking country. Hope someone here can light up my path 🙂 Thats at least something you can say in norwegian...

                          On-Page Optimization | | MarieA
                          1

                        Get started with Moz Pro!

                        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                        Start my free trial
                        Products
                        • Moz Pro
                        • Moz Local
                        • Moz API
                        • Moz Data
                        • STAT
                        • Product Updates
                        Moz Solutions
                        • SMB Solutions
                        • Agency Solutions
                        • Enterprise Solutions
                        • Digital Marketers
                        Free SEO Tools
                        • Domain Authority Checker
                        • Link Explorer
                        • Keyword Explorer
                        • Competitive Research
                        • Brand Authority Checker
                        • Local Citation Checker
                        • MozBar Extension
                        • MozCast
                        Resources
                        • Blog
                        • SEO Learning Center
                        • Help Hub
                        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                        • How-to Guides
                        • Moz Academy
                        • API Docs
                        About Moz
                        • About
                        • Team
                        • Careers
                        • Contact
                        Why Moz
                        • Case Studies
                        • Testimonials
                        Get Involved
                        • Become an Affiliate
                        • MozCon
                        • Webinars
                        • Practical Marketer Series
                        • MozPod
                        Connect with us

                        Contact the Help team

                        Join our newsletter
                        Moz logo
                        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                        • Accessibility
                        • Terms of Use
                        • Privacy

                        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.