Do Tags harm your search results?

[umerjutt00]

I set them to noindex.

 

[holybible]

Just make sure the density is right for all of your pages. Make sure that your content is quality and not stuffed. Google is smart. Write good quality content and make sure that all of your pages are within a reasonable range. Simple.

 

[metalfreek]

Tag pages just create duplicate content so I just don't use tags at all and noindex tag pages on all my sites.

 

[hosam020]

will you have to block "noindex" ur tags and category and archive pages cos it meet case content duplicate you can do this by robots.txt or using the Yoast wordpress SEO

 

[ProSEO Show]

will you have to block "noindex" ur tags and category and archive pages cos it meet case content duplicate you can do this by robots.txt or using the Yoast wordpress SEO

Categories don't necessarily need to be noindexed if they are only displaying snippets for each post rather than the full content, and you add some unique content to each category page like a brief description of that category, etc...I'd definitely noindex tags for most WP sites tho with a few exceptions.

 

[CreativeLinks]

Yes it will harm your search result, just remove all tags...

 

[ProSEO Show]

Think about it - why would google rank a tag page instead of your main page? They want relevant pages to appear right?

Unfortunately you can't rely on an algorithm to make decisions with the rationalization and logic of a human (not that there aren't flaws in us as well lol)...I've had tag pages ranking above the real post for keywords in the past, where they'd both do a "dance" and take turns appearing in SERP's competing w/ each other for the same spot. The posts always had better on-page, more content and typically have backlinks that the tag pages don't, but G manages to make mistakes once n a while (surprise!). When I introduced noindex to tag pages these occurrences stopped happening and my actual posts started performing much better... take it how you will, but personally I noindex, d0 follow "tag" pages on every new WP site these days.