Crunchify

WordPress Tag is a predefined taxonomy since beginning. Almost all, I would say 99% of the sites use WordPress Tags in their blog post.

In contrast to WordPress Category, Tag holds low value and works as Keyword for your blog post. On Crunchify, starting 2012, we have been using Tags extensively.

As you know, Google algorithm changes everyday and long time back Google mentioned about no value add to Keywords. Here is an article by Matt Cutts.

Over the years on Crunchify we had created lots of Mata Tags. Take a look at below my post meta.

Below image shows list of keywords added to Blog Post

On front-end, Yoast SEO plugin adds below meta name=”keywords”

So why this change now? Well, I was spending some time figuring out what all meta tags I should use in blog post and wasting valuable time which wasn’t even required as per Google Search Engine guidelines.

So we have decided to remove all Meta Tags from site and infact we have deleted those from Tags page.

You might be thinking now – then why WordPress has default taxonomy called Tags?

Well, it’s for users who want to distinguish their articles by special key words. This can be achieved by also with ONLY Categories taxonomy.

What all steps I’ve performed to get rid-off Tags on Crunchify?

Step-1

Removed all Tags as you saw above.

Step-2

Remove Tags from Sitemap.xml. If you are using Yoast SEO plugin then

• Go to SEO setting
• Click on XML Sitemaps
• Click on Taxonomies
• Select Not in Sitemap for Tags

Also,

• Go to Yoast SEO
• Click on Titles and Metas
• Click Other Tab
• Use meta keywords tag? – Select Disabled

Step-3

Use Better Search Replace plugin and replace string with all /tag/ with /category/.

Step-4

If you still want to keep some important Tags then I would suggest to convert Tags to Categories.

In order to convert Tags to Categories, better use WordPress recommended tools:

• Click on Tools
• Select Import
• Install Categories and Tags Converter plugin
• Convert all your required Tags to Categories

Step-5

Add .htaccess redirect for all links with tag inside to home page as some of your tags might be indexed in Google Search Engine and you may not want to give 404 result page for those tags.

This is what I’m using at my end. Please modify your domain name.

Step-6

Go to Google Search Console and resubmit your sitemap.xml file as this time you won’t have list of tags in sitemap.xml file.

Would love to know what you think. Chime in and share it as a comment. Don’t forget to share this guide!