Are you aware that your imported feeds could be silently sabotaging your SEO rankings? It might seem like an effortless way to keep your website fresh, but RSS feeds can introduce some hidden SEO pitfalls if not properly managed.
RSS feeds make it easy to aggregate, curate, and syndicate content. With plugins like WP RSS Aggregator, pulling in content from across the web has never been easier. But here’s the thing: without following the best SEO practices, that same imported content might be costing you valuable search engine visibility.
Depending on your sources, you might run into SEO issues like missing meta descriptions, duplicate items, or poorly structured articles while aggregating content. Knowing how to recognize these issues and fix them can help you maintain and improve your rankings on SERPs like Google.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most common SEO issues you can run into when importing content and how you can benefit from addressing them. Then we’ll go over how to fix your feed’s SEO. Let’s get to it!
The Hidden SEO Pitfalls of Imported Feeds
Using a content curation tool like WP RSS Aggregator, you can easily import dozens or even hundreds of articles per day, from one or multiple sources. However, not all of that content will have proper SEO, as not everyone pays attention to it
When working with large volumes of aggregated content, these are the most common SEO issues you may encounter.
Missing Metadata and SEO Tags
Metadata might sound like a complicated word, but it’s actually just information about your content that helps search engines understand what your site is all about. Things like titles, descriptions, alt text for images, and tags are all part of this “metadata.” Even though users can’t always see it, search engines use this data to figure out how to rank your content in search results.
Adding metadata is part of the “on-page” optimization process. Some of the content you curate might not have any metadata or be missing key attributes like alt text (which is more common than you’d think).
If you’re curating content, it’s a good idea to use a tool that automatically pulls in this metadata for you—and lets you make changes when needed. WP RSS Aggregator does exactly that, making it way easier to keep your content optimized for search engines.
Duplicate Content
Search engines really don’t like duplicate content (and that’s putting it mildly). If your website has pages or posts that are too similar or exactly the same, it can hurt your rankings in search results.
Duplicate content can pop up if there’s an issue with the content curation tool you’re using. For example, if the original source you’re pulling from accidentally publishes the same content more than once, and you automatically import that content, you’ll end up with duplicate pages on your site as well. This confuses search engines and can lead to lower rankings.
Some content aggregation tools, like WP RSS Aggregator, also offer full-text importing which allow you to scrape and import the full content. When you publish an identical copy of a post from an outside website, it can be easy to get hit with a duplicate content penalty.
Recommended: The ‘Duplicate Content Penalty’ Dilemma: What’s Real, What’s Not
For more information on how Google treats duplicate content check out this video from Google Search Central. It’s an old video, but the gist remains the same – Google understands that duplicate content will happen sometimes and as long as it’s not malicious, you should be OK:
Poorly Structured Content & Keyword Gaps
Proper page structure is a key component in SEO. Search engines love pages and posts with great header structure, that use keywords properly, and leverage elements like tables and lists.
If you curate content from around the web, you won’t be surprised to find out that a lot of websites don’t use proper formatting for their content. Aside from making posts harder to read, it also makes them harder to curate.
Why SEO-Friendly Content Aggregation Can Benefit Your Site
One of the main reasons businesses aggregate and curate content is to keep visitors engaged on their websites. By providing fresh, relevant content regularly, you can encourage users to spend more time on your site, which boosts engagement and positions your business as an authority in its niche.
But there’s another major benefit to content aggregation: the SEO advantages. When you curate content, you’re not just sharing links. You’re often including excerpts, summaries, or even full articles on your website, all of which can help search engines see your site as a valuable resource.
Here’s a quick example of a curated feed made with WP RSS Aggregator:
In other words, when you regularly add fresh content, search engines take notice. This can lead to:
- Better rankings in search results
- More organic traffic to your site
If you curate highly relevant, interesting content, you’ll also offer a better user experience. Giving your audience more of the content they want is a great way to keep them happy and increase the chances they’ll do business with you.
How to Fix Your Aggregated Content Feed’s SEO
Now that you know some of the most common SEO issues you can run into while working with imported content from RSS feeds, let’s talk about how to fix them.
Before we dive into the details, we’re working on AI-powered features that can help solve various content curation challenges, including improving SEO. If you’ve already used WP RSS Aggregator, we’d love to hear from you! Take this 2-minute survey and share the AI features you’d like to see in the plugin.
1. Add Missing Metadata
Identifying content with missing metadata on your site can be challenging. You can use site audit tools like Screaming Frogs to analyze your site and see where important metadata is missing. However, site audit tools tend to require a subscription and, if you’re not importing content as full pages or posts, they might not detect missing metadata.
To check individual entries for missing metadata, you’ll want to look at the page’s source code. You don’t need to make sense of the code itself, but simply look for meta tags, like meta name=“title”, like in the example below:
If the metadata is missing, you’ll need to add it. Using WordPress, adding metadata like meta titles, descriptions, and tags is very straightforward. You can add tags using the Tags widget while looking at the Post tab in the Block Editor:
Plugins like Yoast SEO also make it easier to add meta descriptions to your content, and preview what it’ll look like in search engines and social media:
When working on a new page or post or editing imported content, you’ll also want to make sure that it has alt text for every image you use. In the Block Editor, you can click on an image, go to the block’s settings, and type the alt text for that file:
Meta titles, descriptions, tags, categories, and alt text make up the core metadata every page on your site needs. Get into the habit of adding that metadata before you publish a new page or curated items and your site will be a lot easier to find in the SERPs.
2. Identify Duplicate Content Issues
If you republish the entire text of an article, it’s very likely that Google will mark it as duplicate content. This can lead to SEO penalties, so you want to be very careful about republishing identical content from third parties.
To avoid duplicate content issues, you’ll want to implement canonical tags that point to the original source of the content. On top of that, you’ll want to make the proper attributions so users also know what the original source is:
If you’re using a content curation plugin like WP RSS Aggregator, you can add canonical links to the content you import by ticking a single option while adding or editing a source. Look for the General > Canonical option and tick the corresponding box:
Aggregator also enables you to configure what author information will appear alongside each item you import. To configure these settings, go to the Author widget while editing a source:
With proper attribution and canonical tags (when needed), you shouldn’t run into any duplicate content issues. If you’re curating content manually, here’s how to add canonical tags to an HTML file.
3. Assess Content Quality & Keyword Usage
Search engines don’t like “thin” content. Thin content means pages with very little to show in terms of text or other elements. Since there’s not much to show, Google is less likely to rank these pages and, if a domain has too much thin content, it can be penalized.
You can avoid importing thin content if you use WP RSS Aggregator. The plugin lets you configure how you import content from each source. If you know a source publishes thin content, you can choose to display quick excerpts instead of full posts for that feed.
Moving on, even if a page has enough content, search engines can fail to take a look at it due to poor formatting and readability. The reason why you see so many headers in web content is that search engines use elements like H1s and H2s to figure out what any given page’s content is about.
If you import content without proper formatting or poor keyword usage, your site is unlikely to rank for related searches. That means you’re not getting the full SEO benefits of content curation.
With WordPress, you can use plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math to help you work content around specific keywords and make other on-page optimizations. If you’re going to republish curated content as a post on your site, we recommend using SEO plugins to optimize it manually.
Enhance Your Imported Feeds with Aggregator for Better SEO
Content curation is a great way to boost engagement on your website and establish your business as an authority in your field. However, depending on the tools you use, you may encounter SEO issues like missing metadata or duplicate content—problems that can hurt your rankings.
WP RSS Aggregator helps you curate content seamlessly, without the worry of missing metadata or duplicate items. The plugin automatically imports both content and metadata from your chosen sources, and you can easily add canonical tags and attribution information to each post, keeping everything SEO-friendly.
If you’re looking to curate content without SEO headaches, give WP RSS Aggregator a try. Sign up for a license today and start curating smarter.
Already using WP RSS Aggregator? Share your thoughts in this quick survey and let us know what additional features would help you tackle your content curation challenges.
