WordPress Login Links Noindex, Nofollow Robots Meta Tag

WordPress Login Links Noindex, Nofollow Robots Meta Tag

There are webpages you do not want indexed in search engines, for example with WordPress there’s no good reason to index /wp-login.php (that’s the WordPress login page) or anything under /wp-admin/ or /wp-includes/.

WordPress by default adds the following robots meta tag to the /wp-login.php page and the lost password page /wp-login.php?action=lostpassword.

<meta name='robots' content='noindex,nofollow'/>

This is an appropriate use of noindex, though WordPress login robots meta tag includes a nofollow meta tag as well, the nofollow meta tag means no links on the webpage are followed and the PR/link benefit is completely lost (nofollow deletes PageRank!).

This is unfortunate, a better solution would be:

<meta name='robots' content='noindex,follow'/>

Some WordPress themes do pass link benefit through the login links via sitewide widget links, adding the above robots meta tag etc… to the WordPress login webpage as described above would recover around 1/3rd of the link benefit that’s currently lost.

Stallion Responsive Theme users need not worry, the Stallion meta widget login links are not text links, they are get forms which means they don’t pass any link benefit. I’ve also added code to the meta widget so it only loads on the home page, so even if Google could follow the form links it’s not sitewide like you see with most WordPress themes.

Continue Reading WordPress SEO Noindex Meta Tag