Content is King - Queen - Jack - Joker and the Aces on the Web!

[jshaffstall]

Originally Posted by solidghost

U mean each post in one category? So this will result in having a lot of categories right?

I came up with a set of 10 categories, and put every post into one of those categories. Having a limited set of categories helps me, too, keep my blog focused on my niche.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Good call Jay as far as limiting the scope of your blog so you don't alienate your core readers by trying to be something to everyone.

When you write a post do you only ever post it into one category or do you ever mark it into a few if applicable?

Rob

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

I came up with a set of 10 categories, and put every post into one of those categories. Having a limited set of categories helps me, too, keep my blog focused on my niche.

Jay

[jshaffstall]

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

When you write a post do you only ever post it into one category or do you ever mark it into a few if applicable?

I only put each post into one category. If more than one applies, I just pick the one that applies most.

I started doing that because of the duplicate content issue. I had a lot of pages in supplemental because content was duplicated in multiple category pages. But I didn't want to keep Google from indexing the category pages, since they can attract targeted traffic based on the category being a keyword.

So I limit each post to just a single category to make sure I don't have content duplicated between category pages.

The end result was that I went from about 50% of my pages in the supplemental index, to only 4 pages. Also part of this was preventing Google from indexing RSS feeds, another source of duplicate content.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Wow! I'm glad I asked. Did you go back and individually alter all of your bloggeries to ensure that each had only one category? I'm thinking of doing that with the reviews.

Your insights are always appreciated; I was going for more categories per post to increase the technorati exposure. That way people searching terms that are applicable to the post can find the post through multiple different searches.

I guess both have pros and cons but long term search engine traffic is always a priority of mine

Rob

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

I only put each post into one category. If more than one applies, I just pick the one that applies most.

I started doing that because of the duplicate content issue. I had a lot of pages in supplemental because content was duplicated in multiple category pages. But I didn't want to keep Google from indexing the category pages, since they can attract targeted traffic based on the category being a keyword.

So I limit each post to just a single category to make sure I don't have content duplicated between category pages.

The end result was that I went from about 50% of my pages in the supplemental index, to only 4 pages. Also part of this was preventing Google from indexing RSS feeds, another source of duplicate content.

Jay

[jshaffstall]

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

Wow! I'm glad I asked. Did you go back and individually alter all of your bloggeries to ensure that each had only one category? I'm thinking of doing that with the reviews.

Yes, that was a royal pain, and I probably annoyed all the people who had trackbacks sent again as I edited posts. But I'm happier with the result, so it was worth it.

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

Your insights are always appreciated; I was going for more categories per post to increase the technorati exposure. That way people searching terms that are applicable to the post can find the post through multiple different searches.

Now that I've got the duplicate content resolved, I'm thinking seriously about the limited use of a Technorati tagging plugin.

I know you're not a fan of those, but I'm hoping that if I keep the number of tags to one or two, plus the one category, it'll be the best of both worlds. That would let the posts be found through multiple keywords in Technorati, but still keep the one category page for Google.

At least that's the theory. Who knows what'll happen in practice! ;-)

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Nono that's a really sound theory and it makes perfect sense. I think the reason I had issues with all the tag editors I used is because I was getting over zealous with the tags maybe 5-10 per bloggery. I think if you limit it to say 3 maximum you should have no problems and obviously sometimes just one or two when applicable.

Duplicate content is awful so thanks for sharing this I think alot of people will find this very useful I know it's changed my idea on things...

Rob

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

Yes, that was a royal pain, and I probably annoyed all the people who had trackbacks sent again as I edited posts. But I'm happier with the result, so it was worth it.



Now that I've got the duplicate content resolved, I'm thinking seriously about the limited use of a Technorati tagging plugin.

I know you're not a fan of those, but I'm hoping that if I keep the number of tags to one or two, plus the one category, it'll be the best of both worlds. That would let the posts be found through multiple keywords in Technorati, but still keep the one category page for Google.

At least that's the theory. Who knows what'll happen in practice! ;-)

Jay