Omit Plugin Category Pages from Search

  • Resolved mvkat

    (@mvkat)


    1 week, 3 days ago

    Google Search Console has discovered pages linked to this plugin on my site. For example, https://[mydomain.com]/category/[name-of-my-category]/. It displays a list of the pages I have created under the category as well as the posting date, page title, css code, and read more button for each page. Try it for yourself if you’re using the plugin. Does anyone know if there’s a way to turn off indexing for this at the plugin level? I can create redirects for these pages but that means I will need to remember to do it every time I create a category. Are there any other solutions? Thank you.

    • This topic was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by mvkat.
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  • Thread Starter mvkat

    (@mvkat)

    1 week, 3 days ago

    From the time I posted the above, I have since found the correct solution with help from Gemini AI.

    1. The “Single Switch” Fix in Yoast

    To “noindex” all /category/ archives (whether they contain posts or your autogenerated pages) without using robots.txt:

    1. In your WordPress sidebar, go to Yoast SEO > Settings.
    2. On the left menu, click Categories & Tags.
    3. Click on the Categories section to expand it.
    4. Look for the toggle labeled “Show categories in search results?”
    5. Set this to Off.
    6. Scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.

    What this does: This adds the <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> tag to every category archive page automatically. Google will still be able to crawl the links on those pages (so your mobile usability and internal linking stay healthy), but the pages themselves will disappear from search results.

    That is correct. Toggling that setting off will not break, delete, or change the taxonomies (the categories and tags) associated with your individual pages.

    Here is exactly what stays the same and what changes:What remains UNCHANGED

    • Data Integrity: The categories you have assigned to your pages in the WordPress backend will remain exactly as they are.
    • Plugin Functionality: The “Pages with category and tag” plugin will continue to function. You can still assign categories to pages and use them for filtering or organization within your site.
    • Internal Links: If you have links on your site that point to these category pages, they will still work for human visitors.
    • Mobile Usability: Since the pages still exist and are “crawlable” (just not “indexable”), Google can still follow the links to see how your site is structured, which protects your usability scores.

    What CHANGES

    • The Search Result: The only thing that changes is that Google is told: “You can look at this /category/ page, but please do not show it in Search results.”
    • The Meta Tag: Yoast will simply insert a small piece of code into the header of those specific category archive pages: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">.

    One Quick Check in Yoast

    Since you just toggled that setting, it’s worth double-checking your XML Sitemap.

    Yoast is usually very smart about this—when you tell it not to show categories in search results, it should automatically remove the category-sitemap.xml from your main sitemap index.

    • To verify: Go to [yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml](https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml).
    • Check if the “category” sitemap is still listed.
    • If it’s gone: You’re in perfect shape.
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