Comment posted to Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Review by Mike Johnson.
I still disagree with you. Why? Over 123 blogs operating on autopilot and 5 more Authority sites that all list on the first page of Google and over 75 (estimate) of those which rank in the Top 3 listings or at Number #1 for their keywords.
Why?
I tell Google what is important on my sites and what I want it to look at. By using a focused SEO methodology you can channelize the GoogleBot and tell it what you want to be indexed from your sites. If you want, you can have nice Authority Links in your Search listings by using Categories instead of Tags, but for the most part, I only allow my Tag pages to be indexed.
This creates a funnel and minimizes any and all duplicate content. The funnel is created by the Tag Pages created by WordPress and then inner linked though WordPress and the Tags listed at the bottom of every article creating a randomized link structure through your site.
Then you backlink Tag pages based on your site’s Primary and Related Keywords. These keywords are used to focus Google’s attention. We then take these keywords and funnel them to dedicated, keyword optimized pages/posts on the blog. You then use more internal linking to show Google that these are your Authority Pages and you funnel your PR to them, not to mention, keyword focus. This focus is enhanced by external linking and backlinks, focused on the same keywords.
I have tested your very same methodology extensively and my sites have dropped in rank every single time I opened the index doors to my Search, Date, and Category/ Tag archives at the same time. When I have closed the funnel and only allowed either Tag or Category pages to be indexed, the best results have been through Tag pages every single time. I only allow categories when I am building a site for authority and want the Category listings to be shown in the search index.
Mike
