This Is What You Need to Know About WordPress Search and the Robots Meta Tag
As a WordPress site owner, you want your content to be easily discoverable by your target audience. However, there may be instances where certain pages on your website are intentionally set to "no-index" to prevent them from appearing in search results. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to a problem where WordPress search still returns these no-indexed pages.
In this article, we'll explore the reasons behind this issue and provide a solution to ensure your WordPress search results only display pages that are set to be indexed by search engines.
Understanding the Robots Meta Tag
The robots meta tag is a HTML element that provides instructions to search engine bots on how to crawl and index a specific web page. The most common values for the robots meta tag are:
index, follow
: Instructs search engines to index the page and follow any links on the page.
noindex, follow
: Instructs search engines not to index the page but to follow any links on the page.
index, nofollow
: Instructs search engines to index the page but not to follow any links on the page.
noindex, nofollow
: Instructs search engines not to index the page and not to follow any links on the page.
By default, WordPress outputs a robots meta tag with the value index, follow
on all pages. However, you or your theme/plugin developers may have set certain pages to noindex, follow
to prevent them from appearing in search results.
The Problem: WordPress Search Returns No-Indexed Pages
The issue arises when WordPress search returns pages that have been set to noindex, follow
. This can happen because the WordPress search function doesn't necessarily respect the robots meta tag and may still include these no-indexed pages in the search results.
This can be problematic for a few reasons:
-
Diluted Search Results: By including no-indexed pages in the search results, you're diluting the quality and relevance of the search experience for your users. They may have to sift through irrelevant pages to find what they're looking for.
-
Reduced Search Engine Visibility: Search engines may penalize your website for having no-indexed pages appear in the search results, as it can be seen as a form of cloaking or deception.
-
Wasted Crawl Budget: Search engines have a limited "crawl budget" for your website, which is the amount of time and resources they're willing to spend crawling and indexing your pages. Including no-indexed pages in the search results can waste this valuable crawl budget.
The Solution: Editing the Robots Meta Tag
To ensure that WordPress search results only display pages that are set to be indexed by search engines, you need to edit the robots meta tag output by the wp_head()
function.
Here's how you can do it:
- Yoast SEO Plugin: If you're using the Yoast SEO plugin, you can use the provided filter to modify the robots meta tag output. Add the following code to your theme's
functions.php
file:
add_filter('wpseo_robots', 'yoast_no_search_noindex', 999);
function yoast_no_search_noindex($string = "") {
if (is_search()) {
$string = "index,follow";
}
return $string;
}
This filter will ensure that the robots meta tag for all search result pages is set to index,follow
, regardless of the individual page settings.
- Manual Robots Meta Tag Editing: If you're not using the Yoast SEO plugin, you can manually edit the robots meta tag output by WordPress. Add the following code to your theme's
functions.php
file:
add_filter('robots_meta_tag', 'custom_robots_meta_tag', 10, 2);
function custom_robots_meta_tag($robotsMeta, $robotsValues) {
if (is_search()) {
$robotsValues['index'] = 'index';
$robotsValues['follow'] = 'follow';
}
$robotsMeta = '';
foreach ($robotsValues as $key => $value) {
$robotsMeta .= $key . '="' . $value . '" ';
}
$robotsMeta = trim($robotsMeta);
return $robotsMeta;
}
This filter will override the robots meta tag output for all search result pages, ensuring that the value is set to index,follow
.
Both of these solutions will ensure that WordPress search results only display pages that are set to be indexed by search engines, improving the overall search experience for your users and helping to maintain your website's search engine visibility.
Real-World Example: Improving Search Quality on an Ecommerce Site
Let's consider a real-world example of how this issue might come up and how the solution can be implemented.
Imagine you're the owner of an ecommerce website built on WordPress. Your website has a variety of pages, including product pages, category pages, a shopping cart, and a checkout process.
To improve the user experience and prevent customers from getting distracted during the checkout process, you've decided to set the shopping cart and checkout pages to noindex, follow
. This ensures that these pages won't appear in search engine results, which could potentially divert customers from completing their purchases.
However, you soon notice that your WordPress search function is still returning the shopping cart and checkout pages in the search results. This is problematic because it:
- Dilutes the search results: Customers searching for products on your site are now seeing irrelevant pages related to the checkout process.
- Reduces search engine visibility: Search engines may view this as a form of cloaking, which could negatively impact your website's overall search engine rankings.
- Wastes crawl budget: The search engines are wasting their valuable crawl budget by indexing pages that you've intentionally set to
noindex
.
To address this issue, you can implement the solution we discussed earlier. By adding the appropriate filter to your theme's functions.php
file, you can ensure that the robots meta tag for all search result pages is set to index,follow
, regardless of the individual page settings.
add_filter('wpseo_robots', 'yoast_no_search_noindex', 999);
function yoast_no_search_noindex($string = "") {
if (is_search()) {
$string = "index,follow";
}
return $string;
}
Now, when a user searches on your WordPress site, the search results will only display pages that are set to be indexed by search engines, providing a more relevant and high-quality search experience for your customers. This, in turn, can lead to increased customer satisfaction, higher conversion rates, and better search engine visibility for your ecommerce website.
Conclusion: Optimizing WordPress Search for Better Results
In conclusion, ensuring that WordPress search results only display pages that are set to be indexed by search engines is an important optimization step for any WordPress website. By understanding the role of the robots meta tag and implementing the appropriate solution, you can improve the search experience for your users, maintain your website's search engine visibility, and make better use of your crawl budget.
Whether you're using the Yoast SEO plugin or manually editing the robots meta tag, the key is to ensure that the search result pages are set to index,follow
, regardless of the individual page settings. By taking this step, you can ensure that your WordPress search function is working as efficiently and effectively as possible.
If you're interested in further optimizing your website's search performance and user experience, consider exploring the powerful features of Flowpoint.ai, a web analytics platform that uses AI to identify technical, UX, and content-related issues impacting your conversion rates. Flowpoint can help you pinpoint the specific problems that may be causing your WordPress search results to underperform and generate actionable recommendations to address them
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