Dynamic URL Parameters + Woocommerce create 404 errors

[jeeyer]

Hi Guys,
Our latest Moz crawl shows a lot of 404-errors for pages that create dynamical links for users? (I guess it are dynamic links, not sure).

Situation: On a page which shows products from brand X users can use the pagination icons on the bottom, or click on: View: / 24/48/All.
When a user clicks 48 the end of the link will be /?show_products=48
I think there were some pages that could show 48 products but do not exist anymore (because products are sold out for example), and that's why they show 404's and Moz reports them.

How do I deal with these 404-errors? I can't set a 301-redirect because it depends on how many products are shown (it changes every time).
Should I just ignore these kind of 404-errors? Or what is the best way to handle this situation?

[jeeyer]

Hi Dirk,
Thanks for letting me know I will post a new one to see if someone can help me out!

Best,
Joost

[DirkC]

Joost

You might want to open a new question (on how to filter) - this question is too deep down the list & marked as answered so I fear nobody is going to see your additional question.

rgds,

Dirk

[jeeyer]

Hi Dirk,
I tried to find some more info last night regarding this issue (the practical part, how to implement it).
But haven't found a solution yet. Thanks for your help!! Really appreciate it.

If someone knows please let me know!
Joost

[DirkC]

Hi Joost,

Unfortunately we don't use Wordpress in our company - I know the basics of the Yoast plugin but I am not really an expert in how to configure it. Maybe somebody else on Moz can help you on how to configure it. My guess would be to fill in the full url - you could always try & see if this works.

There are quite a lot of users on the forum who use Yoast - so I guess they should be able to help you with the configuration.

rgds,

Dirk

[jeeyer]

Or can I just use the canonical input field from the category (when you hit edit under the category)?
I assume that is not specfic enough and means a canonical for the "whole" category, right?

http://monosnap.com/image/yiS3PIkf56wYchL0MkOb3gp2zdjWPX#

[DirkC]

Probably the easiest way to deal with this is to chose one of these pages as the main page & use canonicals on the other versions to the main one.

So - suppose you would chose _/?show_products=all _as the main page - than page /?show_products=48 would have /?show_products=all as canonical.
As you also use pagination - the option of the canonical offers the advantage that you can put the /?show_products_all as canonical url on all the pages  (check also this page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en)

Another option would be to put a nofollow on the other display options. So by default people would arrive on /?show_products=24 - the links on show 48 - all would be of type "nofollow'

You might want to check this article: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.be/2014/02/faceted-navigation-best-and-5-of-worst.html - the scope of the article is a bit larger than the question you as here but some of the points are applicable.

Hope this helps;

Dirk