[Resolved] Unwanted taxonomy pages

[Author]

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[glennN]

Hi,
We created 2 new taxonomies for a website and they are applied to pages and posts. Afterwards, during a health scan, I noticed that there were a bunch of new orphan pages that were created by the taxonomies.
Here is an example: hidden link
So "plumbing-service" is the taxonomy slug and should not have any pages actually created.

I found information that I needed to turn off the rewrite checkbox. This resolved the orphan pages.

The next scan there were a bunch of 404s.
The 404s were previously the orphan pages (same link above) that were linked to by pages structured like this: hidden link

I found an article that mentioned turning off the "query_var" setting, which I then did. It worked and those pages disappeared.

A recent scan shows those 404s again, but this time they're found on URLs structured like this:
hidden link

Looking at the source code of that page and searching for the 404: hidden link I can see that it exists in Yoast's code:
<link rel="canonical" href="hidden link">
<meta property="og:url" content="hidden link">
And Yoast's schema.

How do I eliminate those pages, and if I can't eliminate them, how do I remove the links to the taxonomy pages that no longer exist? Maybe it's tied into Yoast settings?

Thanks for your help.

[Waqar Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Asia/Karachi (GMT+05:00)]

Hi,

Thank you for contacting us and I'd be happy to assist.

The pages you're referring to are called taxonomy archive pages, a built-in feature from WordPress. As far as SEO is concerned you can use them to your advantage, as explained in these guides from Yoast:
hidden link
hidden link

In case, you still decide to make these pages inaccessible, you can include some custom code, as suggested in this support forum thread:
https://toolset.com/forums/topic/wondering-how-to-turn-off-the-archive-pages-for-custom-taxonomies/

I hope this helps and please let me know if you need further assistance.

regards,
Waqar

[glennN]

Thanks for your reply. We don't want to use the taxonomy pages as they're irrelevant to show as a standalone.
I found a fix though without disabling them with code. I enabled the Yoast SEO settings on those taxonomies, then went into each one and pasted in the correct URL as the canonical URL for each eg for the "Drain Inspection" category I pasted in the URL ".../service/drain-inspection/", which is the page we're using publically for that service (not the taxonomy page), saved it, then disabled the SEO controls again. Looking at the page source code, the broken taxonomy page URLs were no longer there.
I re-scanned the site and the 404 issues have disappeared.