Event Calendar not indexing in search engines.

[Devin]

I’ve had my calendar set up for a couple months and have yet to see the URL get indexed within Google search. Is there something that I can do to get the calendar indexed so that when local residents search for events in my local area my site would show in the results?

[Barry]

Hi Devin,

By default The Events Calendar sets a special tag telling search engines not to index month view but to follow any links it contains. So, if your main events page is indeed the month view grid (which is the default), it will typically not be indexed. The same is not however true of other views or for single event posts.

Can I ask if other pages from your site are being indexed as expected? Do you have access to Google Analytics or similar for your site and does that shed any light on what’s happening?

[Devin]

Yes. That’s exactly what is happening. Is there a reason the month view is set that way? Can it be changed?

[Barry]

You can certainly disable it – with a single line of code that can be added to your theme’s functions.php file or to a custom plugin:

add_filter( 'tribe_events_add_no_index_meta', '__return_false' );

Is there a reason the month view is set that way?

Everyone has different SEO needs and we are continually adjusting facets of the plugin like this one as, of course, the way search engines behave is also continually changing.

I believe this adjustment was originally made because of a perceived problem with what are sometimes termed “soft 404s”. Really, though, how search engine optimization looks in practice varies from site to site and according to the amount and distribution of data you have within your site. In essence: do what works for you.

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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