We noindexed 900 tag-archive pages and the real content rose. Thin archives are equity sinkholes.
A WordPress blog auto-generated 900 tag and date archive pages — thin, near-duplicate lists. Every one was indexable and soaking up internal links from every post.
We set them to noindex,follow and stripped the sitewide tag-cloud links, redirecting that internal equity toward category pages and pillars.
Over 11 weeks: Search Console index count dropped by ~850 junk URLs, crawl budget shifted to articles (logs confirmed), and the surviving category pages gained an average of 2.2 positions. Total organic clicks up 19% despite indexing fewer pages.
Thin archive pages don't rank and they bleed equity sideways. 'More indexed pages = more traffic' is the dumbest myth in SEO.
How many tag pages is your blog hoarding for literally no one?
Link Equity Heat
@LinkEquityHeat
We noindexed 900 tag-archive pages and the real content rose. Thin archives are equity sinkholes.
Этот пост опубликован в Telegram-канале Link Equity Heat. Подписаться можно по ссылке: @LinkEquityHeat.