Just a quick question about SEO.

My home page is a K2 category layout, and then I have a second menu item for featured K2 items within this category.

I also have about 20 tags based around the items within the aforementioned category.

Because some K2 items feature on all three pages, will Google see this as duplicate content, and if so, is there a fix for this?

I read something about using canonical URLs but don't know too much about them...

Thanks

Create a new K2 Category menu item and leave the selection blank.
You can call it eg: content.
This way all orphan tags will render through that menu item.

Hello Austin,

Based on my research, SEO experts advice webmasters to ensure that tag pages DO NOT get indexed. Here are a number of posts that explain why:

moz.com/community/q/wordpress-tag-pages-noindex

moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success

moz.com/community/q/dupe-content-canonicalize-the-wordpress-tag-or-noindex

Here's a couple ways you can add "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" meta tags to your K2 tag pages:

Add the following code to your tag template override:

Use NoNumber ReReplacer (Pro) to add <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow" /> using the parameter pages type = tag

I hope this help,

Joe Campbell

I have to disagree on this one Joe,

Tags need to get indexed, you are creating new content for your site.
To be honest tags are a must-have if you setup their URLs correctly since you are not limited to 5 - 15 listing views for Google to index.

Thanks for the replies guys, and sorry for the late reply.

You both seem to make good sense so I guess there's no definitive answer.

Are there any tips to make the tags more SEO friendly?

For example, if I have a site that has one sole category called 'Joomla Blog' and then had multiple tags such as 'K2' and 'PHP', is this a decent structure for SEO?

Thanks!

Hi Austin,

I was taught that tags are for human navigation, which makes sense. As tags make it easy for people to discover related content.

So you then have to ask yourself, do you want some or any of your tag pages indexed. If the tag page(s) adds value to someone's search, then "Yes", but if not then "No". For example, if your website offers Joomla Tips and you have a tag entitled "K2 Tips & Tricks" that page would have value for someone like myself looking specifically for K2 information.

So basically, it depends on your website structure and strategy.

Before I forget - don't forget to use a Sitemap. Here a great article on the subject:
joomlaseo.com/Checklist/sitemap-xml-for-search-engines

I hope this helps,

Joe Campbell

Thanks Joseph. I'll bear that in mind. I'd say all of the tags are relevant, but I was just worried about the search engines picking up the content across more than one page (ie. a blog post may feature on the home page as a latest item, on the featured page, and also across multiple tags.

I would have to agree this is a duplicate content problem and not good for SEO. It is however very good for the user to be able to search by tags.

You will not get duplicate content if you handle your content carefully.