SEO: why do RSS feeds rank higher than articles?

  • idiotprogrammer

    (@idiotprogrammer)


    17 years ago

    Hi, I have the latest version of wp and all-in-one-seo.

    I’m trying to figure out search results.

    We are noticing a problem.
    sometimes rss feeds and category pages for something could be higher than the actual article.

    Look at this search result:
    https://www.google.com/search?q=nanowrimo+nagle

    I would expect this article to appear as number one
    https://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/10/31/nanowrimo-and-me-fascinating-screwdrivers/

    Instead, I see my wp category as the number one search result, then I see the RSS feed, but no original article. I also saw that “See more results from teleread.org” contains this article as well as others.

    until today I had unchecked,
    Use noindex for Categories:
    Use noindex for Archives:

    But now I checked them again. I’m hoping that will solve the problem.

    my questions:
    1. why is the RSS feed ranked so highly?
    2. when you index categories and archives, does google deemphasize individual posts and pages? Why?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Adam Brown

    (@adamrbrown)

    I don’t use these plugins, but here’s some thoughts about your two questions.

    1. Google rankings are always a mystery. Maybe your RSS feeds have lots of subscribers, and those subscribers link back to your site’s feed (but not to your site itself)–that would do iot.

    2. More broadly, you’re asking about duplicate content. Google claims that if you have the same content in more than one place, they will rank all those places lower. That’s why SEO types will tell you to only put excerpts of posts on your front page–so that the full text is contained in only one place, the permalink.

    You could use robots.txt to keep google from indexing your RSS feeds, thus saving some google juice for individual posts.

    Shameless plug: my plugin might help.

    Thread Starter idiotprogrammer

    (@idiotprogrammer)

    unchecking these options
    Use noindex for Categories:
    Use noindex for Archives:

    in all in one seo plugin did a lot of good. much better search results now on teleread.

    Category page is still number #1, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that falls away. The important thing is that the main post is on top.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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