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Should you noindex tag listing pages?



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Should you noindex tag listing pages?

If you have articles/posts/forum/threads/etc, you may have a tag cloud. Clicking on the tag cloud shows a list of articles/posts/threads/etc with the same tag. Is this considered duplicate content by Google?

From my website, I'm seeing a lot of duplicate entries when I search for an exact title of one of my articles in Google. The duplicate entires are all from the various tag pages and sort options that I have. One title search alone shows 942 pages from my website! That is a lot of duplicate content.

Should I noindex the tag pages and other sort option pages so there is only a few variations of the article and not as much duplicate content? I'd prefer the actual article page to rank rather than the sort/tag pages.

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TommyCarey
Yes, it's actually a good practice to NoIndex your tags pages. It will relieve headaches later on down the road and it's best to do it right at the start of launching your website or blog.

A Google analyst by the name of John Mueller actually said that making a tags page noindexed is a great benefit for the website because it will avoid a duplicate content penalty. Having all those pages just confuses Google, Yahoo! and Bing and you definitely don't want that to happen when it could affect your website in a negative way.

Once you NoIndex your tags page you should see a boost in search engine rankings because you won't be pushing, what Google sees as, duplicate content.

Having the actual article page rank over the tags page is your best bet because people never want to come in to a website where they think they're going to be reading an informational article and all they see is a tag page. It's so frustrating when I do it so I know other people probably feel the same way Should you noindex tag listing pages? Also, in terms of your articles, make sure they are engaging and people will come back again and again ;)

So in the end you should do the following:
- Make the tags page NoIndex
- Avoid a possible penalty
- Show up easier for multiple keywords

By doing that little tweak you will not show up as promoting duplicate content and Google, Yahoo! and Bing will love you just a bit more ;)


Thanks,

Razzy



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