Comments on: Using Thesis? Then beware of the “hidden” nofollow on archive pages!

By: Everfluxx

Everfluxx — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:31:16 +0000

Hi MediaGuy, thanks for your comment. Looking at the Thesis 1.7 feature list it does appear that DIYThemes have finally fixed the default nofollow issue, although I haven't verified personally yet (but will do so in the next few days, as soon as I upgrade this blog to Thesis 1.7). Not including the archives widget on your site will prevent internal links to archive pages from appearing in your blog's sidebar. However, please be aware that there might be other links around your blog pointing to archive pages: in particular the post header might (or might not, depending on your blog configuration and your use of tags and categories) include links to category-, date-, or tag-based archives. The main reason for noindexing archive pages is to prevent them from polluting the index with substantially duplicate content and showing up on SERPs in place of the original content pages (posts); the reason for following (i.e., not nofollowing) links both to and from archive pages is to let link juice (PageRank, anchor text, and thematization) flow freely around your blog, and keep the spiders happy: if you nofollowed links to archive pages, you'd be volatilizing PageRank (as Matt Cutts explained); on the other hand, if you nofollowed links from archive pages, you'd be preventing a fair amount of precious link juice from flowing back to your other pages. Finally, about rel=canonical: just open your blog's HTML source (CTRL+U if you're using Firefox or Chrome) and look for duplicate tags in the section. Since rel=canonical is now hardcoded in WordPress and cannot be disabled, I would recommend you disable any rel=canonical plugins and leave the "Add canonical URLs to your site" Thesis option unchecked.

By: MediaGuy7

MediaGuy7 — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:51:58 +0000

Hey there,
I am a new WP and Thesis (1.7) user. Correct me if I am wrong but it appears this issue has resolved as in 1.7 as there are now separate selections for noindex and nofollow. My question though is why “follow” links to archive pages. Unless you are saying google gives you “additional link juice” for the internal links coming from the archive pages which are really just duplicates of the “original posts” internal links. Correct?

Also, if I am not including the archives widget on my site is this all a moot issue in my situation? (though I am using an “xml sitemap” excluding archive pages.

It is my basic understanding of SEO that the reason for excluding Archive pages is to streamline google’s indexing of your site therefore displaying only the single pages (targeted originally by you
for marketing purposes) to be returned in a google search.

Also, I know where the canonical url settings are in Thesis but I am not sure how to check this against the WP canonical settings so I can make sure I am not duplicating rel=canonical urls as you mentioned in a previous post.

Thanks

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:55:47 +0000

Good info to know. I was thinking of going with Thesis, but for now I am sticking with Heatmap. If I make the switch, then I’ll remember to do this .

By: Rakesh Solanki

Rakesh Solanki — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:41:10 +0000

Thanks for giving tutorials for thesis users, may be i would use thesis in future then this tips will be helpful for me.

By: List of plugins I use on this blog — Everfluxx

List of plugins I use on this blog — Everfluxx — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:50:40 +0000

[...] noindex is already taken care of by Thesis (albeit with a nasty default nofollow issue), I’m really just using this plugin for noindexing the WP login [...]

By: Everfluxx

Everfluxx — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:12:14 +0000

Darren’s solution is really just a kludge, because it leaves the interface intact and you would end up with (on occasion) the same broken double meta tags that Michael was using for ages

Darren tried to make it clear in his post that one should uncheck the “Add Noindex to Archive Pages” option when using his workaround, but I agree that not every newbie will do it. Some will simply apply the fix “as is”. Amen.

(not sure if he fixed it)

(No, he didn’t).

It is effectively the same as using a SEO plugin that does it… but Thesis is meant to do everything such that you don’t need SEO plugins

Yeah, and now WordPress does some basic SEO, too: I wonder how many WP 2.9+Thesis blogs have duplicate rel=canonical’s…

By: Andy Beard

Andy Beard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:52:36 +0000

Ack yep you are right

Darren’s solution is really just a kludge, because it leaves the interface intact and you would end up with (on occasion) the same broken double meta tags that Michael was using for ages (not sure if he fixed it)
It is effectively the same as using a SEO plugin that does it… but Thesis is meant to do everything such that you don’t need SEO plugins

By: Everfluxx

Everfluxx — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:08:52 +0000

Hi Andy, thanks for dropping by!

Uhm, I think it was me (in response to your comment here) who said the default nofollow in Thesis was “sub-optimal to say the least”.

Matt only said he would “check it out”… As of today, date-based archive pages on his blog still have a “noindex, nofollow” robots meta tag.

About the custom function approach: Darren Slatten recently provided an elegant workaround you might want to check out.

By: Andy Beard

Andy Beard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:41:49 +0000

I have been tempted over the last 18 months (the issue has been around as long as Thesis has existed) just to buy Thesis to somehow fix this.

I am sick of seeing this problem on the sites of newbbies who don’t realise the implications. I don’t care if it is a problem on sites where the owner should know what they are doing.
I even pointed this out to Matt Cutts some time ago in his comments and he described it as “Suboptimal”

The only real solution is to fix it with a replaced function in functions.php as otherwise you have an interface that is broken – useless for someone providing Thesis for clients.

By: Everfluxx

Everfluxx — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:59:44 +0000

Pink? I thought my theme was phuxxia… Or is that magenta? LOL