Google Indexes Wordpress Feeds
96 words | Last Updated: November 2, 2006 |
If you're wondering why Google indexes your Wordpress feeds rather than the actual posts themselves, check out Problems With WordPress Posts Going Supplemental In Google’s Index for Steven Bradley's solution.
I've updated the robots.txt file as a result.
The problem with feed pages entering Google results is that when people visit those feed pages, they don't look like regular webpages. That's why your site will eventually lose visitor traffic.
In addition, your regular pages can be seen as duplicates especially if you offer full-text feeds.
"Google Indexes Wordpress Feeds"
First Posted: November 2, 2006 | Filed in: Wordpress
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Just to give you a follow up, ever since I made the changes I described in the article my traffic has improved daily. It's gone up about 400% since.
I do want to make clear that doing this won't automatically improve your search traffic. In my case the pages had previously been drawing traffic from Google and then stopped due to the feeds getting indexed.
Denying the feeds from being indexed in my robots.txt file has had the effect of opening the floodgates more than anything. This isn't about new traffic, but rather reclaiming lost traffic.
You'll find a longer robots.txt entry at
http://www.seoresearcher.com/how-to-make-your-wordpress-blog-duplicate-content-safe.htm
It looks like the one in YellowHouseHosting assumed your blog is in a folder, rather than in the root of your site. That's why SEOResearcher.com includes the /feed in the robots.txt file.