Plugin Support
Suwash
(@suascat_wp)
@nicole2010
Upon checking the meta robot tag via page source of respective category page https://www.101planners.com/category/uncategorized/, we do see the meta robot is set to index instead of noindex. Due to this reason, the link remains in cache.
This indicates the category page is being indexed in search results. You can set it to noindex using Yoast SEO plugin.
After this change, you can force Google to update the index. This guide explains more: https://kb.yoast.com/kb/fetch-as-googlebot/.
Thank you for your response.
These are my settings:
Search Appearance -> Categories
Show categories in search results = off
Show seo settings for categories = off
Should that not set the meta robot to no-index?
Show categories in search results has always been off, for years before the post was created.
@nicole2010 Thanks for your reply.
The setting of ‘Show Categories in search results’ that is located under SEO>Search Appearance>Taxonomies is the global default setting for categories. So this setting will apply to all categories, unless you have set a custom value for a particular category. You can set a custom value for this setting in the Yoast metabox on the edit screen for a category.
You can check this setting by performing the following actions:
• Go to the Edit screen for a category
• Scroll down to the Yoast metabox
• Click on the ‘Advanced’ area
• For ‘Allow search engines to show this Category in search results?’ make sure this is set to ‘No’
* Note (setting this value to Yes will set meta robots to index and setting No would set meta robots to noindex)
We also have a guide on how to set the meta robots tag to noindex here: How do I noindex URLs?
Thanks for your response.
I checked and the specific settings for that category are also set to no index.
So, both the default settings for all categories and the specific settings for that category are no index yet my source code is showing that it is set to index.
Could there be a bug?
Plugin Support
Suwash
(@suascat_wp)
@nicole2010 As per your settings configuration, we expect the category to set to noindex. For some reason, it’s not happening. This seems specific to your website.
Often, we see problems occur in combination with another plugin or theme. The fastest way to rule out any conflict, is to deactivate all non-Yoast plugins and switch to a standard theme like Twenty Twenty.
Please test this on your development or staging site, if you have one. If not, we recommend using the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin. This plugin has a troubleshooting mode, which does not affect normal visitors to your site.
If you’re unfamiliar with checking for conflicts, we’d like to point you to a step-by-step guide that will walk you through the process: How to check for plugin conflicts
If you do not feel comfortable to do this yourself or if this does not solve your issue, our Yoast SEO Premium plugin comes with one year of (technical) support.
We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.
