Remove Date Based Archives For Better SEO

[Maccsta]

Removing the archives from the sitemap & removing the archives plugin from the front page.

Is there any point to have SEs index your date archives (with irrelevent titles) when individual posts, pages & category pages are more important?

Any thoughts?

[Don Chambers]

I'm not sure removing the archives plugin would prevent those pages from being found by search engines - removing/hiding the plugin would just remove the links to those pageviews, not disable them.

You can definitely configure the sitemap plugin to exclude specific url types, such as archives, authors, etc.

You might also find this post interesting: http://board.s9y.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11520

[Maccsta]

I'm not sure removing the archives plugin would prevent those pages from being found by search engines - removing/hiding the plugin would just remove the links to those pageviews, not disable them.

You can definitely configure the sitemap plugin to exclude specific url types, such as archives, authors, etc.

You might also find this post interesting: http://board.s9y.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11520

Yeah I think I'd have to use 'Disallow: /archives/' in my robot.txt for that to happen.

But from an SEO point of view I don't see the need for date based archives. Some of my archive pages rank higher than for posts. If I'm looking to target keywords surely these archives will be a hindrance?

[Don Chambers]

As I mentioned, you can tweak the sitemap plugin so that it includes only full permalinks if you want....

You can also selectively use <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> or <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> as discussed in the thread I posted above.

I am not an SEO expert at all - personally, I think the best thing anyone can do for good SEO is to post regular content, and make sure your entries include your site's keywords, description, etc.

Also be sure to check out the HTML Meta tags plugin if you are not already using it - that will allow each of your entries to have unique <title> elements as well as unique meta descriptions and meta keywords.

[Maccsta]

Thanks for the tips Don, is this the meta tag plugin you mean found under the Markup Plugins?

'HTML META-Tags

Sets HTML meta keywords/description tags and title element for single entry pages and default meta keywords/description tags for non-single entry pages.'

[Don Chambers]

Yes, that's the plugin. More info can be found in this blog entry.