Should blog archive and tag pages be indexed or blocked?
- Published November 6, 2026
- Linked from 1 answer
- In a cluster of 77
Index the few that work as real topic pages, and keep the rest out of the index with noindex, not with a robots.txt block. A tag page for a subject you have covered in depth, with an introduction and a sensible order, can be the best page on your site for that subject. Date archives, author archives on a one-author blog, and tags used once or twice are lists of links that repeat what the posts and the main blog page already show, and they give a searcher nothing a post does not.
Sorting archive pages
| Page | Index? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A tag or category page for a subject with many posts, given an introduction and curated order | Yes | It answers a broad search on that subject better than any single post |
| A tag used on one or two posts | No | It duplicates those posts with less content |
| Date archives (by month or year) | No, on a topical blog | People search for subjects, not for "posts from March" |
| Author archives on a single-author site | No | The archive repeats the main blog list |
| Author archives on a multi-author site with author bios | Yes, if the bio carries real information | It helps readers judge who wrote what |
| Paginated pages of any archive | Follow the archive's own decision, as a default | Page 2 of an indexed archive can stay indexable with its own canonical so its links are followed; if the later pages add nothing a searcher would land on, they can be noindexed as long as the posts they list stay reachable another way |
Why noindex rather than robots.txt
Archive and tag pages are how Google finds older posts: they link to everything. A robots.txt block stops Google crawling them, which cuts those paths, and a blocked URL can still be listed if links point to it. A noindex keeps the page out of results while still letting Google crawl it and follow its links to the posts. Do not rely on that route alone: keep every post linked from indexable pages too, such as the main blog list, indexed topic pages and related posts, so its discovery does not depend on how Google treats a noindexed archive over time. The two tools do different jobs, compared directly in the difference between a crawl block and a noindex tag.
Cleaning up a tag system
- Export your tags with the number of posts in each.
- Merge tags that mean the same thing, and delete tags used once.
- Pick the tags that match subjects people search for and that hold enough posts to form a useful list.
- Give those pages an introduction, a clear title and a curated order, and leave them indexable.
- Set the rest, and date archives, to noindex, keeping them crawlable.
Whether to improve thin pages or keep them out of the index is decided case by case in whether to noindex thin pages or improve them. Treat every indexed archive as a page you would want a searcher to land on.
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