Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do I deindex url parameters
-
Google indexed a bunch of our URL parameters. I'm worried about duplicate content. I used the URL parameter tool in webmaster to set it so future parameters don't get indexed. What can I do to remove the ones that have already been indexed? For example, Site.com/products and site.com/products?campaign=email have both been indexed as separate pages even though they are the same page. If I use a no index I'm worried about de indexing the product page. What can I do to just deindexed the URL parameter version?
Thank you!
-
Thanks everyone this is really helpful!
-
As Linda mentioned, adding a canonical url to the version without parameter is the best solution as it gives you control on which pages should be in the index.
For the sake of completeness - in webmaster tools you also have the option to tell the Google bot how it should deal with parameters (under Crawl > URL parameters). Note however that Google itself doesn't really recommend using this option.
rgds
Dirk
-
Hey there!
I would also add that you can look at the Robots.txt Specifications resource from Google for tips.
Hope this helps as well!
-
Put a canonical tag on site.com/products to itself and the parameter versions will go away. (They eventually will anyway--duplicate content does not cause a penalty, it just causes duplicate versions to not be indexed, which is what you want anyway.)
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Trailing slash URLs and canonical links
Hi, I've seen a fair amount of topics speaking about the difference between domain names ending with or without trailing slashes, the impact on crawlers and how it behaves with canonical links.
Technical SEO | Feb 6, 2019, 8:09 AM | GhillC
However, it sticks to domain names only.
What about subfolders and pages then? How does it behaves with those? Say I've a site structured like this:
https://www.domain.com
https://www.domain.com/page1 And for each of my pages, I've an automatic canonical link ending with a slash.
Eg. rel="canonical" href="https://www.domain.com/page1/" /> for the above page. SEM Rush flags this as a canonical error. But is it exactly?
Are all my canonical links wrong because of that slash? And as subsidiary question, both domain.com/page1 and domain.com/page1/ are accessible. Is it this a mistake or it doesn't make any difference (I've read that those are considered different pages)? Thanks!
G0 -
Bulk URL Removal in Webmaster Tools
One of Wordpress sites was hacked (for about 10 hours), and Google picked up 4000+ urls in the index. The site is fixed, but I'm stuck with all those urls in the index. All the urls of of the form: walkerorthodontics.com/index.php?online-payday-cash-loan.htmloncewe The only bulk removal option I could find was to remove an entire folder, but I can't do that, as it would only leave the homepage and kill off everything else. For some crazy reason, the removal tools doesn't support wildcards, so that obvious solution is right out. So, how do it get rid of 4000 results? And no, waiting around for them to 404 out of the index isn't an option.
Technical SEO | Jun 9, 2016, 6:29 PM | MichaelGregory0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | Dec 1, 2015, 10:22 PM | seogirl221 -
Wordpress BackupBuddy adding ?doing_wp_cron= in URLS
Hi Has anyone found WordPress Backup Buddy causing a problem with SEO. I understand why it does it, but wondered if anyone experienced issues with this? Only sometimes it adds /?doing_wp_cron=****** on to the end of a URL Thanks Tom
Technical SEO | Apr 15, 2014, 12:55 PM | TomPryor831 -
Blocked URL parameters can still be crawled and indexed by google?
Hy guys, I have two questions and one might be a dumb question but there it goes. I just want to be sure that I understand: IF I tell webmaster tools to ignore an URL Parameter, will google still index and rank my url? IS it ok if I don't append in the url structure the brand filter?, will I still rank for that brand? Thanks, PS: ok 3 questions :)...
Technical SEO | Jan 29, 2015, 2:23 PM | catalinmoraru0 -
Double Slash // in URL
My client is using double forward slahes in URL like this "//" is this affecting SEO?
Technical SEO | Feb 26, 2013, 2:22 PM | yanaiguana1110 -
MozBar picking up iFrame source as URL
Running a WordPress site with a custom theme. Using a standard wp_head or wp_footer hook to insert the standard code for a Facebook Like, Twitter count / Google Plus count into the site - basically that hook just places the code, programmatically, into the HEAD (where applicable) or right before the BODY closes. For some reason, MozBar is picking up the URL of the iFrame that gets inserted with this code as the URL of the site. I don't have it live right now due to the issues, but I can turn it "on" for anyone who wants a look. Anyone else have this issue? I'm using the code directly from developers.facebook.com for the Like box, and the Google Plus button, Twitter too. Nothing fancy here.
Technical SEO | Jun 5, 2012, 8:25 PM | joechicago0 -
Cyrillic letter in URL - Encoding
Hi all We are launching our site in Russia. As far as I can see by searching Google all sites have URLs in latin letters. Is there a special reason for this? - It seems that cyrillic letters also work. My technical staff says that it might give some encoding problems. Can anyone give me some insight into this? Thanks in advance.. / Kenneth
Technical SEO | Apr 21, 2020, 9:57 AM | Kennethskonto0
