Signs of index bloat#
- Search Console shows far more indexed pages than you have real content.
- A
site:search returns tag pages,?sort=URLs, attachment pages or/page/27/archives. - Many pages get impressions but almost no clicks.
- Important new pages take a long time to be crawled.
Common sources in WordPress#
| Source | Fix |
|---|---|
| Tag archives with one or two posts | Noindex thin tags, or use fewer tags (this theme noindexes tags with fewer than 2 posts) |
| Attachment pages | Redirect to the file or parent post (Yoast/Rank Math have a setting) |
| Internal search results | Noindex and block in robots.txt (this theme does both) |
| Date and author archives on single-author blogs | Noindex or disable |
| WooCommerce filter and sort URLs | Canonical to the main category; block crawl traps |
| Old thin posts | Improve, merge or remove — see content pruning |
Fixing it safely#
Use noindex for pages users need but search doesn’t, canonicals for duplicates, and redirects when merging. Don’t block a page in robots.txt if you want Google to see its noindex. Related: thin content, crawl budget.