Getting Blog Post Entries Indexed Not The Posts Category Page? Options

[saschaeh]

Whats happening is that the articles are getting indexed but the link from Google does not go directly to the article. It goes to the category the article is assigned too.

I have been using wordpress and recently moved to custom bloging/articles system. The move was partly to fix this problem - no luck. In the custom system the article page has custom page title, h2 header, sub-header all with keywords specific to that article. Still Google indexes the category and the category gets the link from the google results.

On the category page the article will be toward the bottom of the page and with time will no longer be on the page - not ideal.

How can i change this? Does it have something to do with my internal linking?

[AbleReach]

Can you search for something *really* specific and still get a SE result for an individual page?

Sometimes multi-post pages will rank for collections of long tail terms that occur within the page but not any individual post - frustrating for users. In that case, I'd try waving the white flag for spiders, aka using robots.txt and the robots meta.

If you're using "pretty" permalinks, robots.txt can be used to disallow crawling whatever folders your blog uses for category URIs

User-agent: *
Disallow: /directoryname/

The robots meta tag can have an influence. Using content="noindex,follow" will tell spiders you don't want the page indexed but do want spiders to follow the links on the page. You could create a custom header for archive pages, using content="noindex,follow" in the robots meta.

[saschaeh]

For example if i Google a friends name who did some illustrations for me:

See here: Red Hammer is my site

My site comes up first but you click on it and takes you to the category and then you need to click on article. Lucky for us it is still the first post. When you go into article you will see i have taken special care of title headers and so on.

I am using "pretty" permalinks.

Ok so the robot.txt things sounds promising but if i disallow in robtos.txt the entire directory then would that not interfere with the robots meta tags of the pages?

I should do one or the other right?

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Dec 18 2007, 07:38 AM

[AbleReach]

Have you tried using her name in the title?

I suggested the meta in case you're not using pretty permalinks. I trust robots.txt more anyway, because the big SEs have recently gotten together on their spiders obeying robots.txt.

If you've got pretty permalinks and can disallow crawling a directory you won't need also to do the meta thing.

(added)

If the site is well indexed for individual pages you can play with disallowing directories used by archives. If the site is not well indexed my personal preference would be to hold off before limiting spiders.

A well indexed site with other links for spiders to follow won't need *all* of the multiple ways WordPress archives pages. You can choose which you want to keep.

(edited for clarity)

This post has been edited by AbleReach: Dec 18 2007, 07:56 AM

[saschaeh]

Yup her name is in the title more toward the end though but albeit should be fine.

ok excellent so all i do then is disallow the category folder.

If these category pages have been indexed is there not something SE likable about them? I.e.: Would i not be losing some ranking if i do this? Will it force the correct page to get indexed or will i loss the ranking all together?

I'm a little nervous that if i disallow the folder the articles wont get indexed at all? Also in terms of internal linking are we not taking away a large part of the linkage to the articles?

(1 million questions here - thanks for your help!)

[JohnMu]

If you want them removed from the index but otherwise still used for discovering links, you may want to use the "noindex" robots meta tag. I believe Joost's robots meta tag plugin will handle this for you on WordPress.

John

[yannis]

With Wordpress the first thing you need to install if you haven't done it already is one of the plugins for SEO such as the All-in-one-SEO-pack. This will handle quite a few of the routine work required for SEO.

Personally I would also recommend a slightly different approach. Instead of stopping the robots from visiting the 'categories' page, I will give them a slightly different fodder. Make your 'excerpt' different from the blog post and don't use <!-more-->. This will avoid duplicate content issues.

In addition Wordpress has a great method of incorporating additional custom fields. Scroll down at the 'custom fields' and add fields such as 'byline' or 'excerpt2' etc. This way you will ensure that what is on the category page will not duplicate on the actual post (except the header). Even here you can add a custom field and change the anchor text if you want.

With this method you will need to modify the category.php template. Similar issues will arise with author.php etc which can be resolved in a similar fashion.

Yannis



This post has been edited by yannis: Dec 18 2007, 09:00 AM

[saschaeh]

Thanks guys!

Yannis

With Wordpress the first thing you need to install if you haven't done it already is one of the plugins for SEO such as the All-in-one-SEO-pack.

Since im not using word press i should find out what those packs install - it would make for a good post


Yannis

Personally I would also recommend a slightly different approach. Instead of stopping the robots from visiting the 'categories' page, I will give them a slightly different fodder. Make your 'excerpt' different from the blog post and don't use <!-more-->. This will avoid duplicate content issues.

See i'm not using wordpress but i have Body Description Field and Body Field. The body description is where the summary goes with the <read more> link. Is this what you mean?

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Dec 18 2007, 09:08 AM

[yannis]

Sorry!

I thought you were using Wordpress, I didn't read your post properly.

What I mean, if you can add fields to the post not just 'description' and 'body field'. If it is possible add 'summary', 'byline' etc. On the categories page do not use the 'body field' but use combinations of the balance.

Yannis

[DianeV]

The other thing is that, looking at your code, I see it's not particularly optimized for seach engines. Visually -- looking at it in a browser -- it looks like it might be, but it isn't in the code. This is likely the main reason why a page dedicated to Alexandra Bruns is not ranking well for that term. (Beautiful illustrations, by the way.)

Also, what's up with the faded out text that looks like a navbar but isn't?

CODE

Website Development | Website Maintenance | Website Template | Ecommerce Website | Website South Africa | Web Development | South Africa | Websites

But it is a nice-looking site.

This post has been edited by DianeV: Dec 18 2007, 11:22 AM

[saschaeh]

Visually -- looking at it in a browser -- it looks like it might be, but it isn't in the code.

I know there are tables and some JS script which i need to get rid off on the post pages - what else in particular? (perhaps we should save this for website hospital in near future)

Also, what's up with the faded out text that looks like a navbar but isn't?

this is H1 tag and is meant for keyword relevant to that page. However i have not made that dynamic for blog entries yet.

But it is a nice-looking site. smile.gif

tehe thanks - soon i want to put it up for review here. Its been 3-4 months of solid work it seems never ending but i am close to a satisfactory level.

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Dec 18 2007, 11:37 AM

[DianeV]

> this is H1 tag and is meant for keyword relevant to that page. However i have not made that dynamic for blog entries yet.

Okay. But if you want the page to rank for "Alexandra Bruns", that ought to be the most "elevated" text on the page.

Basically, what I see is that you're wondering why a page not optimized for a term is not ranking for that term. That's the basic problem.

[saschaeh]

PS: DianeV Alexandra says thank you!

a page not optimized for a term is not ranking for that term

Header title and copy all have far more of keyword in actual post then on the category page. yet category page ranks.

[DianeV]

> Header title and copy all have far more of keyword in actual post then on the category page. yet category page ranks.

Yes, but that should be your first hint that the optimization is not quite done yet.

Notice, for instance, that you've got precisely 46 words that have anything at all to do with Alexandra Bruns, and many more times that in words that are duplicated on many other pages.

This post has been edited by DianeV: Dec 18 2007, 11:54 AM

[saschaeh]

Ok so i would need to increase the word count on the actual article page?

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Dec 18 2007, 12:11 PM

[AbleReach]

Ok so i would need to increase the word count on the actual article page?

It's more an issue of specificity in the top places, especially the title and top level heading for a post.

[JohnMu]

Just some comments regarding your nice site!

The h1-bar as you have it now is problematic - it's almost hidden but within an h1 tag? Don't try to play tricks like that, they'll likely backfire .

Also, there's no need to play with keyword frequency and word count and the such - your category page should be an overview of the various articles, and your articles should be the ones with the full content, therefore attracting the most users. As those articles gain value over time, they will naturally become more important than the category pagtes.

If you absolutely do not want them indexed, a "noindex" robots meta tag is the right choice here. By using the robots.txt you would be blocking the crawlers from finding the anchors and links to your articles - the "noindex" however lets them keep track of the natural structure of your site.

You have some things in your head-section which provide no value, keywords meta tags, robots = all, index, follow, double description meta tag, no-archive=googlebot (it's without the "-" and the other way around and I don't understand why you would want it). But since you're working on it, I assume it's just still in progress

John

[saschaeh]

I assume it's just still in progress

yes and well i am a young SE soldier who is learning by doing.

[saschaeh]

Ablereach

QUOTE
Ok so i would need to increase the word count on the actual article page?
It's more an issue of specificity in the top places, especially the title and top level heading for a post.

Yes in this case have i covered those bases have i not? The article header and the page title have her name in it.

[DianeV]

Take John's advice; it's dead-on.

Secondly, I wouldn't look at the article page so much in terms of keyword count, but rather actually saying something of value that makes an article a good article.

Is Alexandra Bruns one of your employees (or boss? - LOL). Her work in fantastic. There must be quite a lot you can say about her and her work that would make for interesting reading.

This post has been edited by DianeV: Dec 18 2007, 01:53 PM