Hi,
From an SEO point of view, is it okay if I no-index the Sub-Categories of any given Parent Category? I want to rank on Google search for the parent categories because I will be using custom (unique) exercpts that will be completely different than what’s on my individual posts. If I had both Sub and Parent Categories indexed, that would cause duplicate content on both, thus causing issues (I think).
Likewise, if this is fine, can I have it so that I no-index the Parent Category and index the Sub-categories instead?
And if both of these are possible, is it wise to do this? Will there be any consequences or benefits?
PS: I have tags no-indexed currently.
Thanks.
I think the answer would be “yes” based on what you said above.
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for your help.
I’m curious, I wish to no-index a Parent Category, but does this simply mean that the actual category PAGE will not be indexed, yes? The actual posts that are under that Parent Category will not be affected at all, I assume. (likewise, if I did this for sub-categories?)
Correct. If you “no index” a “category” page, they should not be indexed, but will still be “followed” unless you also state “no follow” as well. And yes, the posts linked to will still be indexed, but ideally you should be linking to them from some page which is indexed for best results.
e.g., category page -> link to post (no index)
e.g., sub category page -> link to post (indexed)
Really, you’re just doing the same thing which is common of not having the date archives indexed, eg., NOT indexing the daily “date” index of posts, for example.
Hi Christopher,
Actually I would like to share with you something. Around the time I created this thread, I also went to a SEO forum to answer the same question, to see what they have to say about this, and surprisingly, the only person who replied was against it. After reading both of what you guys have had to say, I would actually agree more with you, but it doesn’t help when someone thinks this is totally a bad idea.
Please check the SS (http://s28.postimg.org/7un6a4w4r/convo.jpg) of what he has replied to me.
Thank you.
Well, yes, obviously it’s not a good idea to create additional indexes for your content which have different info from the text to try to have those pages rank in search results; this is same issue people have with creating 20 tags for a post also. It creates a ton of content which only competes with the actual post and can sometimes rank higher than the post which is not desirable.
Obviously, you should be using the normal methodologies of having a post be the main focus of your content, and then linking to that from normal home page, normal category pages, and having those category pages linking to the posts.
My answer was based on if you are doing something for a specific reason other than link framing or SERPS “stuffing” simply for ease of use in user access, then YES, doing a no-index for these extra special pages you’re creating to show content excerpts in a different way should be done to avoid SEO penalty, but doing those pages will not HELP your SEO, as the person was saying in that forum.
Ideally, you should follow normal practice for SEO of having categories which highlight the normal “excerpts” for the posts; and then create custom excerpts which get loaded into the normal category structures, home page, date archives, etc.
Hope that made sense.
Hi Mr. Simmons,
Thank you for the reply, but now it makes me more unsure of my situation, so let me quickly clarify my situation.
– http://leadnr.com/category/articles <- Is my Parent Category, “Article”.
– http://leadnr.com/category/articles/entrepreneur <- Is 1 of 5 Sub-Categories for my Parent Category, “Article”.
– I wish to NOT rank for “Article” parent-category (due to the term being so broad); I wish to rank FOR the 5 sub-categories (i.e., Entrepreneur, Improvement, Productivity, Motivation, Lifestyle) instead, hence the reason why I wish to use NO-INDEX for “Article” category, and custom exercpts (and why I have no-indexed tags + date archive + author page, to avoid duplicate content). This way I will have unique content that can only be seen in my individual sub-category pages, hence enabling me to rank for these search terms without being penalized (i.e., duplicate content). [Note: If I use the sub-category, “Entrepreneur”, I will never use another subcategory in that same Parent Category (i.e., “Improvement)]
So that is my situation, I have 2 questions that I hope can resolve this thread issue:
===> Will doing the above have benefits for my situation, or cause more problems? Or should I just stick to indexing both Parent & Sub categories and forgetting about ranking on the sub-categories using customized exercpts?
===> For my other Parent Category, “Infographic”, I actually plan to do the opposite, meaning I will no-index the sub-categories, and index the parent category (since I would much rather rank for the term “Infographic” than any of my sub-categories)? Will this be okay, or should I stick to indexing both Parent & Sub categories and forgetting about ranking on the parent-category using customized exercpts?
===> You mentioned something about custom exercpts, is it okay to use them, in my case? Or should I stick to exercpts that come from the actual post?
Sorry for the troubles, but I think I will come to a full understanding now that I have better explained my situation.
Thank you.
I think what you’re trying to do will cause more problems, as you want the POST to rank, not stuff SERPS with extra landing pages, generally.
Remember the “new Google” is no longer about “keywords” but about “answers to questions” and short snippets would not be seen as a detailed answer to a question somebody was asking.
Creating multiple categories isn’t a bad thing, but normally a post wouldn’t fit into five or more categories; often a normal practice for a post might be something like
main category (og tag section) – e.g., books
secondary category – e.g., fiction
third category – science fiction
but you wouldn’t add MORE categories like paperback, US publications, ebook, kindle edition, nook edition, etc. — as that only dilutes the experience.
Put another way, you might as well just use “tags” … so as to not compete with the main site categories.
I use custom excerpts all the time; in fact if you use the YOAST SEO tool, you can create custom excerpt which is better for SEO and better summarizes your post, without it being a simple redo of the first paragraph, which sometimes doen’t fully spell out WHAT the post is about.
Hope that helped 🙂
And, also remember that for any such pages to rank, they ideally need to be linked to from external sites/pages organically, and not many people quoting your post would link to interstitial pages which don’t provide as much value.
Oh okay. I see. I think I’ll forget about trying to rank for the Category pages then… And make sure they are all indexed, both the parent and the sub categories. I’ll still have custom exercpts, as you said I can improve the user experience much more if I add something that’s a bit more pleasing to click on, etc. I think that’s the best choice of action for me.
Thank you very much for clarifying my situation Crhistopher, I truly appreciate your time and expertise!
My pleasure.
When I was learning this stuff a lot of people helped me, so I’m paying that forward as they say 🙂
