[Resolved] SEO – Google indexing issue – Arhieve/category pages

[Lars]

Hi,

Google has started indexing category pages with pretty weird urls. I’ve linked an example below.

Obviously, I don’t want a lot of those urls indexed in Google. I’m using SEO by Yoaast so I contacted them for support.

They suggested that I:

“1. Contact your theme developer as the theme is responsible for creating those pages and URLs. They may be able to provide some support for how to prevent them in the future.”

Done. 🙂 Do you have any suggestions on how to prevent creating these pages?

Best regards
Lars Hellestrae

[Leo]

Hi there,

What do you mean “pretty weird urls”?

Are you referring to the category archive pages?

Those are actually handled by WordPress itself and the links are handled by WordPress’ permalink settings:
https://wordpress.org/support/article/using-permalinks/

The URLs should be exactly the same if you are using a default WP twenty series themes.

Am I missing something here?

Let me know 🙂

[Lars]

Hi Leo,

and thanks for your reply.

But no – it’s not really the category pages (just looks like that). I have dedicated category pages for all my categories.

These are just random new pages that are created out of nowhere. I understand that there is a category page for each category – but should new pages that are not related to any specific category just be created out of thin air?

Best regards
Lars

[Leo]

Can you link me to one of those pages?

The theme itself definitely generate any random pages for you.

Let me know 🙂

[Lars]

Sure. Here is an example: https://agenturer.no/?c=selected&cat%5B2%5D=true

[Leo]

Hmm the code is showing that it’s the page you assigned as the posts page under readings setting screen:
https://wordpress.org/support/article/settings-reading-screen/

It’s actually a page automatically generated by WordPress itself.

[Lars]

I can say for certain that I would never come up with that url and enter it as my “posts page” in the reading section. 🙂 And it’s not that (I’ve checked).

But I understand that it’s not theme related so I’ll to try to find another solution to this.

Thanks for checking and helping out.

[Tom]

That looks like something generated by a plugin. Maybe a filtering plugin of some sort?

[Lars]

Thanks Tom.

A very good tip. I have FacetWP installed so that would probably be the chief suspect. Their support is off for 4th of July but will reach out to them next week.

Thanks a lot for being so helpful!

[Tom]

No problem! 🙂

[Author]

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