Q: 'We auto-generate a tag page for every attribute. Should we kill them?'

Q: 'We auto-generate a tag page for every attribute. Should we kill them?'

Short answer: Prune the empty and near-duplicate ones — one cleanup recovered category rankings.

The longer version: A craft-supplies store auto-created tag archives for every attribute, producing ~6,000 thin pages, many with 1-2 products or overlapping a real category 90%. These were quietly cannibalizing the proper category pages. They kept the ~150 tag pages with 10+ products and unique demand, noindexed the rest, and 301'd the closest duplicates into their parent categories. Three months later, total indexed pages fell by 5,500 and 14 core category pages that had been competing with tags recovered from page two to page one. Conversions per session on category pages rose because the strongest URL was finally the one ranking.

Rule of thumb: A tag page earns its place only with unique products AND unique demand. Otherwise it's competing with your own categories.

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