Tags, categories and Search results - what is the best approach?

[indyank]

Until now people were freely categorizing and tagging pages. Many also link to search results within the site, if there are several products for a search.

But this all seem to have changed after the recent algo changes. Many are now adding "noindex" to these pages or blocking them via robots.txt.

What is the best approach for these pages? Should we add "noindex" to them or block them via robots.txt or do nothing?

If we either add "noindex" to them or block them via robots.txt, is it still fine to tag pages? (i.e. explicitly link to tag pages from the tagged page) or should we be removing the tag links?

[netmeg]

I don't know from "best" because I suspect it depends.

For me, I block all the tags - they're only there to kind of help the user while they're on the site. I don't see any reason for them to go into Google. Any category page that I've had time to actually develop will be allowed into the index, but I generally block the ones that I haven't gotten to yet.

[onebuyone]

When you noindex them you will not see any difference in traffic. If you remove tag pages which rank good other page from your website will be picked up for some particular tag phrase and probably will get same ranking.

Question is why very often Google is picking tag pages over articles(You can't have article and tag page high in SERP at same time on one phrase for some reason). Perhaps tag pages aren't that bad after all.

[indyank]

Thanks netmeg. Do you link to those pages even if you block them in robots.txt? i.e. if page A is tagged as "Flowers", do you link to the URL for flowers on page A?

onebuyone, it is interesting that even adding noindex to them does not affect traffic and the ranking seem to be passed on to another page. I think, when a group of pages with the most relevant content is tagged appropriately with the right keyword google decides to rank the tag page.

[Shatner]

I noindexed all tags and categories after Panda. I never got much google traffic from them even before Panda, so it was a no-brainer. Didn't help me with Panda, but I've just left them noindexed for now.

However, my chief competitor, ubenknownst to most, gets 90% of their traffic because Google ranks all of their tag pages for key phrases at #1 for many high-traffic listings.

In many cases, by the way, their tag pages are actually garbage and are not good content, often thin content for the result.

But Google ranks them #1 even over more relevant content.

Meanwhile I've had to completely noindex mine, even though as far as I can tell mine are structured identically to my competitor's... and contain better, more relevant content.

So... what's the answer? What does Google want? I have no idea.

[Rasputin]

One of my smaller sites that has significantly increased traffic since Panda (up from 250 pv a day to 1000 pv a day) is an old (wordpress) site that has lots of tags and categories. Most of the tags only have 2-4 entries so they are pretty thin as well.
None of them are nofollow / noindex.
Funny thing is the site also hasn't been touched for a couple of years, does no social marketing, and attracts very few natural links. The articles are decent quality though, and there's only about 50 articles altogether so perhaps it fell below Panda's radar.
Conclusion for me: I wouldn't add them on a new site but I wouldn't necessarily rush to change them on an older site. My guess is that problems lie elsewhere or that tags only form a very small part of the 'holistic' view of a site referred to elsewhere by Tedster.

[AlyssaS]

I would say the only rule is "don't duplicate".

So if you have a category for "Brand X", don't have a tag for "Brand x" as well, as the category page and tag page will be pretty much identical, and you'll get dinged.

If your tags list different groups of pages than your category pages, you should be OK.

Also, avoid "orphan" tags, which list just one page. What's the point of them? None, apart from trying to leverage internal linking, and G doesn't seem to like that. If the tags hold several pages though, it's ok.

I too try to rank category pages, as they are helpful to searchers.

[netmeg]

No, I don't link to tags. I don't even use them unless I really have to.

As far as category pages - I will also use them in cases where I have a bunch of product pages that aren't likely to rank on their own - i.e. an ecommerce site with separate pages for different sizes or different colors, so I have 10 pages of essentially the same widget; if I can get the buyer to the category page, he can probably figure out which widget to buy from there. So I have been known to prioritize category pages OVER product pages, if I think I have a better shot with them.

[walkman]

To be safe, don't do it.

What Alyssa said dinged me on panda and I'm still on panda land.