Why do "attachment" pages exist?

  • I’ve just discovered that my search results are woefully polluted with pages that have images sitting on them. These are the pages that wordpress creates when you upload an image. Why do these exist? Is there a way to prevent them from being created?

    A secondary nuisance is that sometimes when you upload and insert an image it defaults to linking the image to one of these attachment pages. Why would anyone want this?

    I see that they hold the basis to image galleries which is potentially useful, but 95% of the time they are just cruft in the system.

    Solutions?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • These pages exist because you opted to link the image thumbnail(?) to an attachment page rather than the full size image itself when you inserted theme into Posts or Pages.

    Is there a way to prevent them from being created?

    Either chose “Media file” or “None” when inserting images.

    Why would anyone want this?

    WP is configured to select the last option you chose, so I can only assume that you have been choosing this option on the previous image insertion.

    Thread Starter nickaster

    (@nickaster)

    Well, technically I didn’t opt in. My writers did it in ignorance and now I’m cleaning up the mess.

    Is there a way to force the default to always be NONE? The problem is they accidentally (or purposely?) do it once, then repeatedly do it and I don’t always have time to check.

    Also, are you saying this page will not be created at all if the image has never been “linked to”? I fear that these pages do exist for every image ever uploaded whether someone linked to it or not… is that not true? I’ll be greatly relieved if so!

    But again… why would anyone ever want this?

    Is there a way to force the default to always be NONE?

    Off the top of my head, not that I know of but you could try asking in the Hacks forum.

    Also, are you saying this page will not be created at all if the image has never been “linked to”?

    Yes. There has to be a link for Google et al to index.

    why would anyone ever want this?

    Some people like to insert a thumbnail into a Post (for better download performance) but have the option to show a larger image to those who are sufficiently interested. Photographers spring to mind. ??

    Thread Starter nickaster

    (@nickaster)

    Thanks…. I’ll ask the hackers.

    Well that’s good news on the “created page” issue. Unfortunately, it seems like once Google knows about them, even if I kill all links, I’m still stuck with the pollution, that’s a real drag.

    Yeah, I know about the thumbnail concept but man, it would seem like a far better idea to have to *choose* this every time, if you were going to do it as a photographer than to get stuck cleaning up this mess.

    I’m still stuck with the pollution, that’s a real drag

    If you have a Google webmaster account, you can always put in a request for those urls to be pulled from their index.

    Thread Starter nickaster

    (@nickaster)

    Yeah i know, but it’s a big manual slog… I can’t even tell how many are indexed. For a rainy day.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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