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I'm still confused with WP categories- Help

by mikeb222
10 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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If I create a site and then create let's say 30 articles.
And I have 4 categories.
Can I then place the same article in each category if relevant?

For example, I write about Men's Blue Mountain Bikes Under $1000 then post that article in 4 different categories-

1. Men's Bikes
2. Mountain Bikes
3. Blue Bikes
4. Men's bikes under $1000

Is that the correct way or is this duplicate content?
#categories #confused #wordpress
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  • Profile picture of the author palmtreelife
    Assuming you have a separate page for each of your 4 categories, when you post that article to 4 different categories, it will get posted to each one of those pages ie. duplicate content.

    If you write an article about Men's Blue Mountain Bikes Under $1000 and only post that article in the category of Blue Bikes, it will only get posted on that one page.

    It's an easy way to organize and publish your posts. You choose which pages get which posts.

    In your example though, you have written an article that pertains to all 4 categories, so it makes sense to publish on each page.

    Hope that helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author mikeb222
      Originally Posted by palmtreelife View Post

      Assuming you have a separate page for each of your 4 categories, when you post that article to 4 different categories, it will get posted to each one of those pages ie. duplicate content.

      If you write an article about Men's Blue Mountain Bikes Under $1000 and only post that article in the category of Blue Bikes, it will only get posted on that one page.

      It's an easy way to organize and publish your posts. You choose which pages get which posts.

      In your example though, you have written an article that pertains to all 4 categories, so it makes sense to publish on each page.

      Hope that helps!
      So, wouldn't Google penalise me for duplicate content in that example?
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      • Profile picture of the author palmtreelife
        I believe you edited your original question? I'm pretty sure I would have answered differently.

        Why would you write 30 articles and put all 30 articles in all 4 categories? That doesn't make any sense. The whole point of categories is to organize your posts. What you're suggesting provides no organization.

        So, wouldn't Google penalise me for duplicate content in that example?
        I'm not an SEO expert, but you're going to be in a very tough battle for ranking either way as men's mountain biking is a big niche. Personally, and this is just my opinion, I would not want my business to rely on Google rankings. It's so competitive and difficult to reach AND maintain a high ranking. Some are very good at it, but the masses obviously are not because not everyone can rank high. Again, ranking is not something I would focus on. I would focus on content and driving traffic to my site without relying on SEO for that traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author NetMan
      Originally Posted by palmtreelife View Post

      Assuming you have a separate page for each of your 4 categories, when you post that article to 4 different categories, it will get posted to each one of those pages ie. duplicate content.

      If you write an article about Men's Blue Mountain Bikes Under $1000 and only post that article in the category of Blue Bikes, it will only get posted on that one page.

      It's an easy way to organize and publish your posts. You choose which pages get which posts.

      In your example though, you have written an article that pertains to all 4 categories, so it makes sense to publish on each page.

      Hope that helps!
      It's not really how this works. The OP mentioned about using WordPress so, he can post ONE article that will AUTOMATICALLY appears on each category page in which it is tagged. Category pages are created on the fly by WordPress when they are called, and the listing for that cat appears but the article page is still only the one and single same page.

      So, so you cannot choose which page get which post, simply because in WordPress PAGES and POSTS are two different things. A post is a post, and a page is a page, however pages and post can share the same categories as well.

      So, on WordPress either you POST an article OR you create a PAGE, but you cannot POST on a PAGE nor create a page as a POST.

      Cheers!
      Andy
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      • Profile picture of the author palmtreelife
        Yup, very sorry for the confusion. I have a PAGE on my Wordpress site with a drop down menu. The menu lists all the categories I have for my POSTS. When someone clicks the drop down menu and clicks a category, a new WEBSITE PAGE comes up showing all posts to that category. I didn't mean to confuse website page and Wordpress page, and for someone who was asking for clarity, I should have been more conscious of my wording.

        I still don't think it makes sense though to put a post in all categories. Yes, it's one single post like you said, but I don't feel it's necessary to design a blog site so that each post shows up in every category...why have different categories if that's the case? I think it's ok now and then if a post truly applies to all categories, but that should not be the norm in my opinion.
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        • Profile picture of the author NetMan
          Originally Posted by palmtreelife View Post

          ...

          I still don't think it makes sense though to put a post in all categories. Yes, it's one single post like you said, but I don't feel it's necessary to design a blog site so that each post shows up in every category...why have different categories if that's the case? I think it's ok now and then if a post truly applies to all categories, but that should not be the norm in my opinion.
          While I don't think that was the intention of the OP, I totally agree with you on that.

          While it is okay to have a post which fits in all categories, because that can certainly happen especially if one has only 4 categories on one's site, I certainly do not recommend to build a site with the purpose of having all articles to appear in each category, indeed. I believe that could "confuse" the "spider" and thus affect one's ranking...

          Cheers!
          Andy
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  • Profile picture of the author naviown
    Maybe it is easier to link it to the relevant article instead of posting it?
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  • Profile picture of the author Aletoria Booker
    No. When you create the post, you should see a box for categories in the right column. Just check all that apply. Wordpress does the rest.
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  • Profile picture of the author NetMan
    Originally Posted by mikeb222 View Post

    If I create a site and then create let's say 30 articles.
    And I have 4 categories.
    Can I then place the same article in each category if relevant?

    For example, I write about Men's Blue Mountain Bikes Under $1000 then post that article in 4 different categories-

    1. Men's Bikes
    2. Mountain Bikes
    3. Blue Bikes
    4. Men's bikes under $1000

    Is that the correct way or is this duplicate content?
    YES!

    That's perfectly correct this is exactly how it works. WordPress automatically creates the Categories Pages on the fly when a category is called upon. So if one calls on the Blue Bikes cat, they will see that post, as well as if they call any other cat in which you have tagged the article. And NO, that does NOT create duplicate content, there's only one piece of that content, only it appears in all the selected categories. That's it.

    Cheers!
    Andy
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  • Profile picture of the author kebumen
    This is not duplicate content. Why? Because when you write an article, you can classify the article into your categories, as long as it's still related. I often write an article into some categories.
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