Whether category pages should be indexed or not heavily depends on your strategy. As a rule of thumb, blog categories should be no-indexed, while eCommerce product categories should be indexed.
There are, of course, nuances, and case-by-case diversions from this rule:
- If you’re targeting particular pillar strategies and not just categorizing blog content for the sake of semantics, then your blog categories should be indexable. Moreover, you can optimize your content category pages by adding text, CTAs, and other content to them, making them a valuable addition to your website as opposed to just a page that hosts a stream of other pages.
- If you’re adding categories to your eCommerce page that are there just to label content, but you don’t want users to actually navigate the website by those labels, then those category pages should be no-indexed.
If you need help with your eCommerce SEO or your content strategy, then we may have something for you…
Wanna learn more? Here are some collection & category page SEO resources:
