Wordpress pages indexed by Google

[Bill Deakin]

Hi

Anyone on here know much about Wordpress? I'm not an expert on blogs and set one up a few months ago using the Wordpress software.

A few of the blog pages have been indexed, but they are only XML feeds of little use. None of the actual posts are indexed. The results for all blog pages are along the lines of (typical google result for one of my blog pages):

Comments on: Passive vs Active Online Promotion : Part 2
http://www.earn-ez.com/blog/archives/29 Earn-eZ.com weblog - news and updates... Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:20:19 +0000
www.earn-ez.com/blog/archives/29/feed/ - 1k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

Am I doing something wrong in the way the blog is setup, or the way I am posting, which is preventing my actual posts from being indexed? It is set with numeric permalinks. I have non-blog pages indexed, but none in the blog. Would I be better off spending my time adding content to the rest of the site, rather than the blog?

Bill

[peterjhale]

Hi Bill

I can see your problem. Google thinks all the pages are the same.

Your titles are the problem. They all start:

kleeneze news and updates >> blog archive >> then the title

You need to change that in your WP set up

[Bill Deakin]

Fantastic thanks Peter, I really should have figured that myself!

Cheers

Bill

[Bill Deakin]

Just for anyone else using Wordpress who hits this problem, there doesn't appear to be a way of fixing this from the admin CP. You can fix it by editing the header.php file in the theme. Replace line 6 (in the default theme) with:

<title>
<?php if (is_home()) { ?>
<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo(’description’); ?>
<?php } else { ?>
<?php wp_title(’’); ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?>
<?php } ?>
</title>

That will put the name of the post at the beginning of the title where it should be!

Hope that helps someone...

Bill

[peterjhale]

I go one further with my WP blogs and just have the title of the post at the top.

Just check what it does to your index page and your archives first (although I have deleted links to the blog/2006/09/30 type links)

you've just got to cut down the chances of dup content - have a look at www.smallbusinesspro.co.uk to see what I mean

[Bill Deakin]

Nice one, thanks Peter

[Bill Deakin]

Hi Peter

Sorry to keep asking questions but... on smallbusinesspro.co.uk I noticed you have set the description meta to the title but you have no keyword meta... Is that the best way to set it up? Have you tried using a meta plugin at all?

[peterjhale]

lol, I hadn't noticed that

I wouldnt worry - title and description are most important

[Bill Deakin]

Cool... I've set it up pretty much like your site now, must say the URLs look a lot better even if Google doesn't agree

Thanks for your help

Bill

[fisicx]

Dont bother with the keyword metatag - not one of the major search engine takes any notice.