Category Indexer for WooCommerce

Category Indexer for WooCommerce is a powerful SEO tool designed to help WooCommerce store owners efficiently manage the indexing of their category and shop pages. By selectively controlling which pages are indexed and followed by search engines, this plugin can help save on Google’s crawling budget, particularly for large WooCommerce stores. This means better resource allocation and potentially improved SEO performance.
This plugin gives you complete control over three critical SEO elements that directly impact your WooCommerce store’s search engine performance: meta robots tags, canonical URLs, and link juice distribution.

Control Meta Robots Tags with Precision
Unlike basic SEO plugins that offer only site-wide settings, Category Indexer for WooCommerce allows you to configure meta robots tags (index, noindex, follow, nofollow) at multiple levels. You can set global defaults for all shop and category pages, then override these settings for individual categories that need special treatment. This granular control means you can index your high-value category pages while preventing search engines from wasting resources on low-value pagination pages – all through an intuitive interface that requires no coding knowledge.

Automatic Canonical Tag Implementation
Duplicate content is one of the biggest SEO challenges for WooCommerce stores. When you have category pages with pagination, sorting options, or filtering parameters, search engines can see multiple similar pages competing for the same rankings. This plugin automatically adds canonical tags to all your category and shop pages, ensuring that pagination pages always point back to the primary page as the authoritative version. This consolidates your SEO authority and prevents Google from penalizing your site for duplicate content.

Optimize Link Juice Flow Through Your Store
Every link on your website passes SEO value (link juice) to the pages it points to. Without proper management, this valuable link equity gets diluted across hundreds of pagination pages that don’t need it. By strategically applying nofollow meta robots tags to pagination pages, you keep link juice concentrated on your most important pages – your main category pages and product pages. This means better rankings for the pages that actually drive sales, while still allowing customers to navigate your entire catalog.

Understanding Key SEO Concepts

Meta Robots Tag

The meta robots tag is an HTML element that tells search engine crawlers how to index and follow your web pages. This plugin automatically adds the appropriate meta robots tag to your WooCommerce category and shop pages, allowing you to control:
* Index/Noindex: Whether search engines should include the page in their search results
* Follow/Nofollow: Whether search engines should follow the links on that page
* Crawl Budget Optimization: By using noindex on paginated category pages, you prevent search engines from wasting crawl budget on duplicate or low-value pages

For example, you might want to index the first page of your “Electronics” category but noindex pagination pages (page 2, 3, etc.) to avoid duplicate content issues.

Canonical Tag

A canonical tag (rel=”canonical”) is an HTML element that helps prevent duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page is the “master” or preferred version. This is crucial for WooCommerce stores because:
* Category pages often have multiple URL variations (with sorting, filtering, or pagination parameters)
* Duplicate content can dilute your SEO rankings
* Search engines may split ranking signals across multiple similar pages

This plugin automatically sets canonical URLs on category and shop pages, ensuring that all pagination pages point back to the first page as the canonical version. This consolidates ranking signals and prevents search engines from indexing multiple similar pages.

Link Juice

Link juice (also known as link equity or link authority) refers to the SEO value and authority that is passed from one page to another through hyperlinks. When a page links to another page, it’s essentially “voting” for that page, passing along some of its authority. Here’s how this plugin helps with link juice management:
* Nofollow on Pagination: By setting pagination pages to “nofollow,” you prevent link juice from being diluted across dozens of paginated category pages
* Focus Link Equity: Keep link juice concentrated on your main category pages (page 1) rather than spreading it thin across pagination
* Internal Link Optimization: Control which pages pass link juice to your product pages, ensuring maximum SEO benefit for your most important products
* Preserve Crawl Budget: By preventing crawlers from following low-value links, you ensure they spend more time on your valuable product and category pages

Features:
* Meta Robots Tag Control: Add noindex, nofollow, index, or follow meta robots tags to shop and category pages
* Canonical URL Management: Automatically set canonical tags on paginated pages to prevent duplicate content
* Indexing Control: Choose whether the first page or all other pages of your shop and product categories should be indexed or noindexed
* Follow Control: Decide if search engines should follow or nofollow links on the first page or all other pages of your shop and product categories
* Link Juice Optimization: Control the flow of link equity through your category structure
* Shop Page Settings: Apply specific meta robots tag and canonical settings for the shop page
* Category-Specific Settings: Apply unique meta robots and canonical settings to individual product categories for granular control
* Compatibility: Fully compatible with Rank Math and Yoast SEO plugins, seamlessly integrating with your existing SEO setup
* Translation Ready: Easily translatable, making it accessible for non-English users

Benefits:
* Optimize Crawling Budget: By managing which pages are indexed with proper meta robots tags, you ensure that Google’s crawl budget is spent more effectively, leading to better indexing of your important pages
* Prevent Duplicate Content: Canonical tags prevent search engines from indexing multiple similar pages, consolidating ranking signals
* Improve Link Juice Distribution: Control how link equity flows through your site, keeping it concentrated on your most valuable pages
* Better SEO Rankings: Proper meta robots tag and canonical tag implementation can lead to improved search engine rankings
* Avoid Indexing Waste: Prevent low-value pagination pages from cluttering search results
* Easy to Use: Intuitive settings interface in the WordPress admin area, making it simple to configure meta robots tags, canonical URLs, and link juice flow

Use Cases:
* Large WooCommerce stores with hundreds of categories and pagination pages
* Stores experiencing duplicate content issues in Google Search Console
* Sites wanting to optimize crawl budget and focus on high-value pages
* Store owners who want fine-grained control over meta robots tags and canonical URLs
* SEO professionals managing WooCommerce sites who need to control link juice distribution

Compatibility:
* Rank Math SEO: Automatically integrates with Rank Math SEO free version to apply your meta robots tag and canonical preferences
* Yoast SEO: Seamlessly works with Yoast SEO free version to manage your category and shop page meta robots tags and canonical URLs

• Install via WordPress Admin:

  • Navigate to WP-Admin -> Plugins -> Add New.
  • In the search bar, type “Category Indexer for WooCommerce”.
  • Once you find the plugin, click on the “Install Now” button.
  • After the installation is complete, click on the “Activate Plugin” button.

• Install via FTP:

  • Download the plugin zip file from the WordPress.org repository.
  • Upload the plugin zip file to your WordPress installation’s wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  • Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

• After activation, go to Settings -> Category Indexer in your WordPress admin panel.

  • Adjust the settings according to your needs and save the changes.

1. 

   Admin settings page where you can configure indexing and follow settings for shop and category pages.

2.0.0

• Complete redesign and refactoring of the PHP code
• Added category caching
• Added option to Remove /page/1/ from pagination links and URLs
• Added support for Block Themes (FSE Themes)
• Added meta robots tag setting for Site Search
• Added default meta robots tag values ​​for categories and subcategories
• Added default canonical tag values ​​for category and subcategories pagination

1.0.1

• Fixed plugin uninstallation.