I know this is a very popular plugin, and I certainly love it!
Just curious how many people who use it disable the archive in robots.txt to stop duplicate content?
I've read some conflicting conversations on it. I figured posting this here (instead of in frostschutz's thread) might be more appropriate.
So, for SEO purposes in general...
do you all block or not block /archive/ in your robots file?
I don't know if it's better for SEO or if Google sees this as duplicate content but as an end user I find archives really annoying. Whenever I come across an archive page, I always go back to the full version of the thread. Some users (with less forum experience) might also find it confusing, resulting in them leaving your website.
(2011-05-02, 07:59 AM)Aries-Belgium Wrote: [ -> ][...] but as an end user I find archives really annoying. Whenever I come across an archive page, I always go back to the full version of the thread.
Thats the reason I blocked archive too.
SEO wise the only problem with the archive (and print version for that matter) is that it might be seen as duplicate content. So it should be either blocked, or given canonical tags. Google SEO can do that for the archive (but not yet printthread); as such I block printthread, but allow archive with canonicals.
If you already have lots of archive pages indexed, adding canonicals might be the better option, so when Google revisits those archive pages, it won't just kick them out of its index but actually update/merge it with the full version.
Thanks for the input, guys.
Frostschutz, I hope you don't mind me starting this thread. It's just such a popular plugin that so many people use, I really wanted to have the discussion (without the risk of HIJACKING your main support thread!)
I agree with the previous poster who said that finding an archive page annoys him. It annoys me too. Although this is probably a symptom of my ADHD (lol).
What would be the proper way to block archive in the robots.txt file?
Would it be:
/archive
or
/archive/
or
something else?
How can I fix this problem? I'm facing many duplicate contents because of archive and google SEO full url.