Where to Find This Tab
Go to SEO Rank Genius → Indexing & Sitemaps → Taxonomies (fourth tab under the “Content” group).
Category Indexing
Categories are the primary organizational structure for most WordPress sites. This setting controls whether category archive pages appear in your sitemap and are indexed by search engines.
Include Categories in Sitemap
Add category archive URLs to your XML sitemap
Add category archive URLs to your XML sitemap
Noindex Empty Categories
Add noindex to categories with zero posts
Add noindex to categories with zero posts
Recommended: Keep categories in your sitemap — they’re important hub pages that distribute link equity to individual posts.
Tag Indexing
Tags are a secondary taxonomy. Whether to index them depends on your site:
| Scenario | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Tags mirror categories | Noindex tags — they create duplicate archive pages |
| Tags are unique topics | Index them — they serve as additional topic hubs |
| Many tags, few posts each | Noindex — thin tag pages waste crawl budget |
Custom Taxonomies
If you have custom taxonomies (from WooCommerce, a theme, or a plugin), they appear in a table at the bottom of this tab. Each taxonomy shows:
- Name and slug
- Number of terms
- Indexing status (green dot = indexed, gray dot = noindex)
- A toggle to include/exclude from the sitemap
| Taxonomy | Terms | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Product Categories product_cat | 24 | Indexed |
| Product Tags product_tag | 8 | Noindex |
Empty Term Handling
Empty terms (categories or tags with zero posts) create thin pages that waste crawl budget. The plugin can automatically:
- Add
noindexto empty taxonomy pages - Exclude them from the XML sitemap entirely
Note: If you’re using WooCommerce, some empty product categories may be placeholders for future products. Review before enabling aggressive noindexing.
Best Practices
- Always index categories — they’re important navigational pages.
- Only index tags if they add genuine value (unique groupings, not duplicates of categories).
- Noindex empty terms to keep your index clean.
- For WooCommerce, index product categories but consider noindexing product tags.