should tags be indexed?

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

Hi,

I have set up a couple of websites this month, but I decided not to use any "crucial" plugins anymore, such as SEO, caching, image optimizers etc.

Well, I noticed that without the AIOSEO plugin that I used to use the tags get indexed in google, and I'm not sure whether this is bad, or doesn't matter.

Can someone confirm (or infirm) whether or not the tags need to be indexed in google? If I have to install SEO plugins again just to address this issue (if it's that big of a deal, that is) I will do it, but I obviously choose not to if that's not important, because of site speeds and stuff.

Let me know your experience with tags in the google index...

RichKIDLK · Apr 21, 2021

useless

SpeedProxies · Apr 21, 2021

Pretty sure they don't really help anymore.

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

RichKIDLK said:
useless

SpeedProxies said:
Pretty sure they don't really help anymore.

I know they don't help with rankings, but that's not what I needed to know. I need to know whether I should worry about them being in the google index (in which case I have to install an SEO plugin to make them noindex), or whether I should just ignore them being in google and not bother with SEO plugins ever again. This is what I wanted to know

Kiemsha · Apr 21, 2021

it depends on your theme

RichKIDLK · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
I know they don't help with rankings, but that's not what I needed to know. I need to know whether I should worry about them being in the google index (in which case I have to install an SEO plugin to make them no index), or whether I should just ignore them being in google and not bother with SEO plugins ever again. This is what I wanted to know

Most of the time those are indexed fast before the posts. So if you want to keep those in SERP results it's OK. NO harm happening to the site. When your posts start to gain authority and start to rank in SERP those tags will gone for more backwards in serp. No issues. Other hand there's no value for SEO with tags. Maybe it will help users to browse the website, but we have categories already for that.

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

RichKIDLK said:
Most of the time those are indexed fast before the posts. So if you want to keep those in SERP results it's OK. NO harm happening to the site. When your posts start to gain authority and start to rank in SERP those tags will gone for more backwards in serp. No issues. Other hand there's no value for SEO with tags. Maybe it will help users to browse the website, but we have categories already for that.

fair points! Thanks, I know what to do now (which is what I wanted to do anyway, which is NOT use SEO plugins anymore). Cheers, mate!

Kiemsha said:
it depends on your theme

really?? I never thought of that, but then again the theme I'm using does have 100s upon 100s of triggerable settings and features, so I may have overlooked this particular setting. Thanks for the headsup lol

tiiberius · Apr 21, 2021

I personally de-index them to avoid cannibalization. I never really tested this it's more like a "feeling".

However, search engines can distinguish between tag pages and post pages easily these days imo.

Probably no action needed and you can just leave it be.

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

tiiberius said:
search engines can distinguish between tag pages and post pages easily these days imo

so, why do they still index the tags if they can distinguish between tags and pages? I thought that google is all about user friendliness and smooth, clean navigation and all that crap.

tiiberius said:
you can just leave it be

you're singing the song that I like to hear

tiiberius · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
so, why do they still index the tags if they can distinguish between them? I thought that google is all about user friendliness and smooth, clean navigation and all that crap.

I think it's because they are not identical. Just excerpts are matching.

theRevolt · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
I know they don't help with rankings, but that's not what I needed to know. I need to know whether I should worry about them being in the google index (in which case I have to install an SEO plugin to make them noindex), or whether I should just ignore them being in google and not bother with SEO plugins ever again. This is what I wanted to know

Ok here a test for you
- Go got a tag page
- Now look at the content that is indexed there
- Now you likely see that it is all duplicate content from your actual posts

And probably there lies your answer.

Just nonindex them , problem solved. Mostly you will see they are seen as garbage thus they do not rank, but every now and then I see them rank, so in that scenario your shooting yourself in the foot.

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

tiiberius said:
I think it's because they are not identical. Just excerpts are matching.

Probably... Oh well, to hell with them, I'll just ignore them if I can't noindex them without a plugin, no big deal

theRevolt said:
Just nonindex them

I would like to do this, but without having to use plugins. Is there another way??

By the way, I forgot to mention that they don't show up in my rankings (well, I'm not ranking anywhere actually), I just stumbled upon them when I ran a "site:" search cause I was curious to see how many pages of my "new" website google had indexed, and instead of finding 10-12 URLs like I expected, I found about 150 URLs, and most of them are tags. That's when I freaked out LOL

tiiberius · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
I would like to do this, but without having to use plugins. Is there another way??

You could use robots.txt or .htaccess for this.

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

tiiberius said:
You could use robots.txt or .htaccess for this.

oh yeah, .htaccess... Dang, I totolly forgot about that file! I used to do cool things with it in the past

... Thanks, mate!

theRevolt · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
Probably... Oh well, to hell with them, I'll just ignore them if I can't noindex them without a plugin, no big deal

I would like to do this, but without having to use plugins. Is there another way??

By the way, I forgot to mention that they don't show up in my rankings (well, I'm not ranking anywhere actually), I just stumbled upon them when I ran a "site:" search cause I was curious to see how many pages of my "new" website google had indexed, and instead of finding 10-12 URLs like I expected, I found about 150 URLs, and most of them are tags. That's when I freaked out LOL

As was said

Robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow: */tags/*

(i forgot is its called tags or tag, but you get trhe idea)

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

theRevolt said:
As was said

Robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow: */tags/*

(i forgot is its called tags or tag, but you get trhe idea)

I think it's called "tag" (well, that's how it appears on google when I check). And yeah, I got the idea, thanks

One more question: is robots.txt preferable to .htaccess? I remember having had better control with .htaccess in the past when I used to toy with that sensitive file, but if robots.txt does the job just as well I'd rather use robots.txt instead of .htaccess (for safety reasons, obviously).

theRevolt · Apr 21, 2021

tazarbm said:
I think it's called "tag" (well, that's how it appears on google when I check). And yeah, I got the idea, thanks

One more question: is robots.txt preferable to .htaccess? I remember having had better control with .htaccess in the past when I used to toy with that sensitive file, but if robots.txt does the job just as well I'd rather use robots.txt instead of .htaccess (for safety reasons, obviously).

You;'d usually do access when u want to block ahrefs etc so people cannot see it, as you cannot navigate to /htaccess vs you can see /robots.txt
In addition, you can easily check your robotstxt in search console

tazarbm · Apr 21, 2021

theRevolt said:
You;'d usually do access when u want to block ahrefs etc so people cannot see it, as you cannot navigate to /htaccess vs you can see /robots.txt
In addition, you can easily check your robotstxt in search console

got it, thanks!

hideath · Apr 22, 2021

you should avoid indexing tags as some are interlinked from too many posts and google bot can put more weight over them and rank them for some of your keywords instead of a page/post
many websites got their tags indexed instead of the main article, which will cause a higher SERP bounce rate and do more harm for sure

simply block them in robots.txt to avoid link juice flowing over them rather than the case of noindex
ofc you can use noindex tag if you want that to be done but depends on the website structure, your usage of tags, etc...

tazarbm · Apr 22, 2021

hideath said:
you should avoid indexing tags as some are interlinked from too many posts and google bot can put more weight over them and rank them for some of your keywords instead of a page/post
many websites got their tags indexed instead of the main article, which will cause a higher SERP bounce rate and do more harm for sure

simply block them in robots.txt to avoid link juice flowing over them rather than the case of noindex
ofc you can use noindex tag if you want that to be done but depends on the website structure, your usage of tags, etc...

gonna noindex them with robots.txt

Thanks for the input!

should tags be indexed?

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