I wanted to first say that I never really cared much for using tags in WordPress. Not only do I find them confusing and not as helpful as other methods, but it also creates a lot of duplicate content- Something that Google frowns upon a lot.
Well, about a month or 2 ago, I removed all the tags from a wordpress blog and I didn’t realize that it caused some technical server response code problems until Google Webmaster Tools reported that my site was generating a lot of Soft 404 errors. This is probably considered a much worse problem in comparison to having semi-duplicated content from those tags that I removed. So I basically shot my self in the foot without realizing it! Good thing I am using Google Webmaster Tools or else I would never have known.
What was Happening?
The problem was that even though I removed any linking to those tags (by associating them to written posts) , the tags were still written in the database. And when they are still documented in the database, the old tag hyperlinks were showing the 404 page like it should but it was displaying a 200 server response code (which isn’t right). This should be displaying a 404 response code. I found this out by using a HTTP Server Response Code Tester like this one and pasting in the tag url. So if this is happening to you also, you will want to fix this or else Google may rank you much lower than you deserve. Here’s how!
How to Quickly Fix This
A simple fix is to delete these from the database. Follow the steps below:
- Log in to your web hosting control panel.
- Login to that blog’s database. Mine is located under “phpMyAdmin” in “_wrdp1“
- Click on “wp_terms“. This will list all the old tags and current category names.
- I recommend you make a backup of the “wp_terms” 1st by clicking Export and saving the SQL file to your computer in case you make a mistake.
- You have to now select all the old tags to delete, but make sure you don’t delete the category names for the blog because these are in here also.
- Then simply hit “Delete”
That should fix your problem, but you should check to make sure by using a HTTP Server Response Code Tester. Let me know if that fixed your problem in the comments below. Thanks
