Why WordPress Sites Often Have Indexing Problems
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, but its default settings are not optimized for SEO. Hundreds of thousands of WordPress sites have the same common mistakes: tag pages duplicate content, author archives output the same articles, pagination is not configured.
The good news: most problems are solved in 15–30 minutes through Yoast SEO or RankMath plugins.
Yoast SEO: Basic Settings for Indexing
Yoast SEO → Search Appearance → Content Types:
- Posts — index: Yes, Show in results: Yes
- Pages — index: Yes
- Media (Attachments) — index: No (must be turned off)
- Tags — index: No if fewer than 5 posts per tag
- Author Archives — index: No if only one author
By default, WordPress creates a separate page for each uploaded image (attachment page). These pages are almost empty content and seriously waste crawl budget. Turn them off in Yoast SEO → Search Appearance → Media → disable attachment pages.
Tags and Categories
WordPress tags are one of the biggest SEO traps. Each tag creates a separate archive page that outputs the same articles as the category. The result: content duplication and dilution of the crawl budget.
- If a tag is used on fewer than 5 articles → noindex or delete it
- If the category and tag output the same content → delete tags altogether
- For active tags: add a unique description via Yoast (minimum 100 words)
XML Sitemap in WordPress
WordPress 5.5+ has a built-in sitemap (/wp-sitemap.xml), but it includes everything: attachment pages, empty archives, author pages. It's better to use the Yoast SEO sitemap:
- Yoast SEO automatically excludes pages with noindex
- Allows you to separately configure what to include
- Automatically updates upon publishing new content
Copy your sitemap URL into IndexFast — and new articles will automatically be sent via the Google Indexing API immediately after publication. No manual work required.
WordPress Speed and SEO
A slow WordPress site gets a smaller crawl budget and ranks worse. Main reasons for slow performance:
- Too many plugins (especially visual builders)
- Unoptimized images without WebP
- Lack of caching (WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache)
- Slow hosting or shared server
Common WordPress Errors in Search Console
- "Discovered - currently not indexed" — usually low-quality pages or a crawl budget problem
- "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" — www and non-www versions, or URL parameters
- "Crawler anomaly" — plugin or theme generates erroneous URLs
- "Soft 404" — page looks empty but returns a 200 code
Accelerate WordPress Site Indexing
IndexFast automatically reads the Yoast sitemap and sends new articles via the Google Indexing API. Setup takes 5 minutes.
Try for free →WordPress SEO Indexing Checklist
- Yoast SEO or RankMath installed
- Attachment pages disabled
- Tags without content are closed via noindex
- Author archives disabled (for a single-author blog)
- Yoast XML sitemap registered in Search Console
- Site speed tested via PageSpeed Insights
- Caching configured
- Google Indexing API connected via IndexFast