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I like to show full posts on my index pages, so they are convenient for visitors to read and they don't have to click "read more" links to read the full post.

However, with this setup Google often shows the index pages as a first hit for a search which is not convenient for visitors coming from search engines, because they have to find the relevant post on the index page.

Is there an easy way to ensure individual blog posts are first results on google and index pages rank lower? This would be the best, because then the blog would be easy to read for both kinds of visitors: direct visitors would see the full posts on the index pages, while visitors coming from search engines would go directly to the individual posts.

The obvious solution would be to use "noindex,follow" on index pages, so only post pages are indexed, but in an other question people didn't favor this idea, though I'm not sure what harm would it do. That's why I'm asking if there is some other solution.

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  • If you find a solution to this, post it here: I want to know too :)
    – user6901
    Feb 13, 2012 at 22:50

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This is a common issue for a lot of blogs. The easiest way is just to use the read more link. But, you say you don't want to do that so humor me for a sec.

Making index pages "noindex, follow" is not the best idea since this will give your website a funny hierarchy: the indexed child pages will not have indexed parent pages. I don't think it'll cause immediate issues though, your're just not using a great way to optimize for competitive keywords. Generally, index pages have most authority and are therefor great for ranking for competitive keywords. It would be a shame not to take advantage of this!

So what I propose is the following:

  • When you write an article, get as much good links to the blog article pages as possible. That way the search engines will know fast enough that the blog article pages is more relevant than the article that's on the index page(s).
  • Make sure the article is, immediately after publishing, is added to the XML and HTML sitemap so it can be found quickly by the Search Engines.

Please note that blog article pages should in theory be more relevant than the index pages anyway, since the index pages probably have different keywords in the page title, headings and general text.

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  • Yes the article pages should be more relevant. Now that I think of it may happen only with the main index page of the blog itself, because every page of the blog links to it via the Home link, so that is the strogest page. So while a post is new and is on the first page of the index then google shows the index page higher in search results than the post. When the post is pushed back to the second page then the post page will probably rank higher. So it may only be a temporary thing for new posts. Maybe making the Home link nofollow from the post pages would do the trick.
    – Tom
    Feb 13, 2012 at 17:11
  • Hi Tom, I would not use nofollow links from the post pages to the home page. This is not beneficial for your internal linking structure. Just focus on generating high quality content and build some links to the newly published blog articles. Good luck!
    – Steven Van Vessum
    Feb 16, 2012 at 9:51

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