Date Archives Redirecting to Homepage, not Corresponding URL

  • Resolved nevrsmer

    (@nevrsmer)


    4 years, 3 months ago

    Hello,

    In reviewing logs of visits to our new site, there are dozens of instances of what appear to be date archives appearing in said logs with a 200 server response, meaning they are visible and indexible. For example: /2019/06/01.

    In Yoast > Search Appearance > Archives > Date Archive Settings, “Date Archives” is set to Disabled. We configured this setting before adding content to our site to avoid the creating of date archives. In our sitemap that’s generated by Yoast, there are no instances of date archives. Regardless, they are being crawled and indexed by search engine crawlers as evidenced by the aforementioned visitor logs.

    Furthermore, all of these date archives are being redirected to the home page by Yoast via 301 redirects (many dozens of them), according to a redirect checker. From what I understand, redirecting posts/pages to content that has no relevance to the redirected post/page – especially to the home page – is not good at all for SEO.

    What can I do to delete all date archives? I don’t want them indexed. If that’s not possible, what can be done to hide them from search engines so they are not indexed?

    If neither option is not possible, what can be done so that Yoast redirects all date archives to the relevant page? For example, the post “/cats/cat-treats” was published on “/2019/06/01”, resulting in the date archive slug “/2019/06/01”. If someone inputs the URL”mydomain.com/2019/06/01″, why is it not redirected to “mydomain.com/cat-treats”, which is where the actual content is?

    It does not make sense semantically, or with regards to SEO to redirect this date archive to the home page when “cat-treats” has no connection to the home page.

    Thanks and have a good day.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support Md Mazedul Islam Khan

    (@mazedulislamkhan)

    There’s no option available in Yoast SEO plugin that will allow you to delete the date archives and there’s no need to since you have already disabled them by using Yoast SEO settings which is redirecting them to the homepage of your site.

    Are you sure that those date archives are already being indexed by Google as it shouldn’t if you have disabled the date archives before even launching your website? However, if it does, you’ll simply need to wait as Google will soon notice that there are no date archives as those pages are redirecting to the front page which will signal Google to stop visiting those URLs on your site. If the date archives are already being, those will also disappear in time but it may take a while.

    On the other hand, Yoast SEO plugin doesn’t come with redirects feature that will allow you to redirects manually redirects certain pages. However, if you wish to manually manage the date archives redirects, you can use the Yoast SEO Premium as it comes with a redirect manager.

    Thread Starter nevrsmer

    (@nevrsmer)

    Hello Mazedel,

    Thanks for the response.

    Google’s is not the only search engine on the Internet. As I stated in my first message, “they are being crawled and indexed by search engine crawlers” (crawlers is plural). With that said, do you guys only develop your plugin to work with Google, or does it work with other search engines too?

    Regarding the date archives being redirected to the home page, you really didn’t answer my question. Why are they being directed to the homepage instead of the actual page/post they are connected to? Why doesn’t Yoast follow its own guidelines regarding redirecting pages/posts to pages/posts that have nothing to do with the redirected page? If a site has dozens, if not hundreds, of date archives that are automatically created, having them all redirected to the homepage goes against what Yoast – as well as many other SEOs – about redirected irrelevant pages/posts to the homepage.

    According to Yoast, pages/posts – if they are redirected using a 301 redirect – should be redirected to a page/post that has similar content, not to the homepage for convenience or out of laziness , in accordance with SEO best practices.

    Even in Yoast’s free plugin, should it not adhere to the same SEO best practices it preaches?

    Thanks and have a good day.

    Plugin Support Md Mazedul Islam Khan

    (@mazedulislamkhan)

    Do you guys only develop your plugin to work with Google, or does it work with other search engines too?
    It’s true that Google isn’t the only search engine available on the internet but it is the major one. Yoast SEO works great with all the available search engines on the internet.

    Why are they being directed to the homepage instead of the actual page/post they are connected to? Why doesn’t Yoast follow its own guidelines regarding redirecting pages/posts to pages/posts that have nothing to do with the redirected page?
    A date archive page can have multiple posts on it. So, how do you decide on which exact post you want a date archive page to redirect to?

    Based on our testing, redirecting the date archives to the homepage doesn’t cause any issues. However, if you think that we should improve this, please do feel free to submit an enhancement request directly at the GitHub development repository so our development team can decide on this.

    That said, even though Yoast SEO is a free plugin, it follows all the SEO best practices and serves millions of websites today.

    Plugin Support devnihil

    (@devnihil)

    We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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