Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Partial Match or RegEx in Search Console's URL Parameters Tool?

    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.

    Partial Match or RegEx in Search Console's URL Parameters Tool?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    15
    3274
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Ria_
      Ria_ last edited by

      So I currently have approximately 1000 of these URLs indexed, when I only want roughly 100 of them.

      Let's say the URL is www.example.com/page.php?par1=ABC123=&par2=DEF456=&par3=GHI789=

      All the indexed URLs follow that same kinda format, but I only want to index the URLs that have a par1 of ABC (but that could be ABC123 or ABC456 or whatever). Using URL Parameters tool in Search Console, I can ask Googlebot to only crawl URLs with a specific value. But is there any way to get a partial match, using regex maybe?

      Am I wasting my time with Search Console, and should I just disallow any page.php without par1=ABC in robots.txt?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Andy.Drinkwater
        Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

        No problem 🙂

        Hope you get it sorted!

        -Andy

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Ria_
          Ria_ @DirkC last edited by

          Thank you! 😄

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Ria_
            Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

            Haha, I think the train passed the station on that one. I would have realised eventually... XD

            Thanks for your help!

            Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • DirkC
              DirkC last edited by

              Don't forget that . & ? have a specific meaning within regex - if you want to use them for pattern matching you will have to escape them. Also be aware that not all bots are capable of interpreting regex in robots.txt - you might want to be more explicit on the user agent - only using regex for Google bot.

              User-agent: Googlebot

              #disallowing page.php and any parameters after it

              disallow: /page.php

              #but leaving anything that starts with par1=ABC

              allow: page.php?par1=ABC

              Dirk

              Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Andy.Drinkwater
                Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                Ah sorry I missed that bit!

                -Andy

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Andy.Drinkwater
                  Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                  Disallowing them would be my first priority really, before removing from index.

                  The trouble with this is that if you disallow first, Google won't be able to crawl the page to act on the noindex. If you add a noindex flag, Google won't index them the next time it comes-a-crawling and then you will be good to disallow 🙂

                  I'm not actually sure of the best way for you to get the noindex in to the page header of those pages though.

                  -Andy

                  Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Ria_
                    Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                    Yep, have done. (Briefly mentioned in my previous response.) Doesn't pass 😞

                    Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Ria_
                      Ria_ @Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                      I thought so too, but according to Google the trailing wildcard is completely unnecessary, and only needs to be used mid-URL.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Ria_
                        Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                        Hi Andy,

                        Disallowing them would be my first priority really, before removing from index. Didn't want to remove them before I've blocked Google from crawling them in case they get added back again next time Google comes a-crawling, as has happened before when I've simply removed a URL here and there. Does that make sense or am I getting myself mixed up here?

                        My other hack of a solution would be to check the URL in the page.php, and if URL includes par1=ABC then insert noindex meta tag. (Not sure if that would work well or not...)

                        Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Martijn_Scheijbeler
                          Martijn_Scheijbeler @Ria_ last edited by

                          My guess would be that this line needs an * at the end.
                          Allow: /page.php?par1=ABC*

                          Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Andy.Drinkwater
                            Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                            Sorry Martijn, just to jump in here for a second - Ria, you can test this via the Robots.txt testing tool in search console before going live to make sure it work.

                            -Andy

                            Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Ria_
                              Ria_ @Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                              Hi Martijn, thanks for your response!

                              I'm currently looking at something like this...

                              **user-agent: *** #disallowing page.php and any parameters after it
                              disallow: /page.php #but leaving anything that starts with par1=ABC
                              allow: /page.php?par1=ABC

                              I would have thought that you could disallow things broadly like that and give an exception, as you can with files in disallowed folders. But it's not passing Google's robots.txt Tester.

                              One thing that's probably worth mentioning really is that there are only two variables that I want to allow of the par1 parameter. For example's sake, ABC123 and ABC456. So would need to be either a partial match or "this or that" kinda deal, disallowing everything else.

                              Andy.Drinkwater Martijn_Scheijbeler 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Andy.Drinkwater
                                Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                                Hi Ria,

                                I have never tried regular expressions in this way, so I can't tell you if this would work or not.

                                However, If all 1000 of these URL's are already indexed, just disallowing access won't then remove them from Google. You would ideally be able to place a noindex tag on those pages and let Google act on them, then you will be good to disallow. I am pretty sure there is no option to noindex under the URL Parameter Tool.

                                I hope that makes sense?

                                -Andy

                                Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • Martijn_Scheijbeler
                                  Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                                  Hi Ria,

                                  What you could do, but it also depends on the rest of your structure is Disallow these urls based on the parameters (what you could do in a worst case scenario is that you would disallow all URLs and then put an exception Allow in there as well to make sure you still have the right URLs being indexed).

                                  Martijn.

                                  Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • 1 / 1
                                  • First post
                                    Last post

                                  Got a burning SEO question?

                                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                                  Start my free trial


                                  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.

                                  • See all categories

                                  Related Questions

                                  • rickyporco

                                    After hack and remediation, thousands of URL's still appearing as 'Valid' in google search console. How to remedy?

                                    I'm working on a site that was hacked in March 2019 and in the process, nearly 900,000 spam links were generated and indexed. After remediation of the hack in April 2019, the spammy URLs began dropping out of the index until last week, when Search Console showed around 8,000 as "Indexed, not submitted in sitemap" but listed as "Valid" in the coverage report and many of them are still hack-related URLs that are listed as being indexed in March 2019, despite the fact that clicking on them leads to a 404. As of this Saturday, the number jumped up to 18,000, but I have no way of finding out using the search console reports why the jump happened or what are the new URLs that were added, the only sort mechanism is last crawled and they don't show up there. How long can I expect it to take for these remaining urls to also be removed from the index? Is there any way to expedite the process? I've submitted a 'new' sitemap several times, which (so far) has not helped. Is there any way to see inside the new GSC view why/how the number of valid URLs in the indexed doubled over one weekend?

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rickyporco
                                    0
                                  • Brett-S

                                    Link juice through URL parameters

                                    Hi guys, hope you had a fantastic bank holiday weekend. Quick question re URL parameters, I understand that links which pass through an affiliate URL parameter aren't taken into consideration when passing link juice through one site to another. However, when a link contains a tracking URL parameter (let's say gclid=), does link juice get passed through? We have a number of external links pointing to our main site, however, they are linking directly to a unique tracking parameter. I'm just curious to know about this. Thanks, Brett

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S
                                    0
                                  • jmorehouse

                                    Should I disallow all URL query strings/parameters in Robots.txt?

                                    Webmaster Tools correctly identifies the query strings/parameters used in my URLs, but still reports duplicate title tags and meta descriptions for the original URL and the versions with parameters. For example, Webmaster Tools would report duplicates for the following URLs, despite it correctly identifying the "cat_id" and "kw" parameters: /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM
                                    /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?cat_id=87
                                    /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?kw=CROM Additionally, theses pages have self-referential canonical tags, so I would think I'd be covered, but I recently read that another Mozzer saw a great improvement after disallowing all query/parameter URLs, despite Webmaster Tools not reporting any errors. As I see it, I have two options: Manually tell Google that these parameters have no effect on page content via the URL Parameters section in Webmaster Tools (in case Google is unable to automatically detect this, and I am being penalized as a result). Add "Disallow: *?" to hide all query/parameter URLs from Google. My concern here is that most backlinks include the parameters, and in some cases these parameter URLs outrank the original. Any thoughts?

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jmorehouse
                                    0
                                  • mark_baird

                                    Do Q&A 's work for SEO

                                    If I create a good community in my particular field on my SEO site and have a quality Q&A section like this etc (ripping of MOZ's idea here sorry, I hope it's ok) will the long term returns be worth the effort of creating and man ageing this. Is the user created content of as much use as I think it will be?

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mark_baird
                                    0
                                  • trung.ngo

                                    Remove URLs that 301 Redirect from Google's Index

                                    I'm working with a client who has 301 redirected thousands of URLs from their primary subdomain to a new subdomain (these are unimportant pages with regards to link equity). These URLs are still appearing in Google's results under the primary domain, rather than the new subdomain. This is problematic because it's creating an artificial index bloat issue. These URLs make up over 90% of the URLs indexed. My experience has been that URLs that have been 301 redirected are removed from the index over time and replaced by the new destination URL. But it has been several months, close to a year even, and they're still in the index. Any recommendations on how to speed up the process of removing the 301 redirected URLs from Google's index? Will Google, or any search engine for that matter, process a noindex meta tag if the URL's been redirected?

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trung.ngo
                                    0
                                  • mirabile

                                    Brackets vs Encoded URLs: The "Same" in Google's eyes, or dup content?

                                    Hello, This is the first time I've asked a question here, but I would really appreciate the advice of the community - thank you, thank you!  Scenario:  Internal linking is pointing to two different versions of a URL, one with brackets [] and the other version with the brackets encoded as %5B%5D Version 1: http://www.site.com/test?hello**[]=all&howdy[]=all&ciao[]=all
                                    Version 2: http://www.site.com/test?hello
                                    %5B%5D**=all&howdy**%5B%5D**=all&ciao**%5B%5D**=all Question: Will search engines view these as duplicate content?  Technically there is a difference in characters, but it's only because one version encodes the brackets, and the other does not (See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp) We are asking the developer to encode ALL URLs because this seems cleaner but they are telling us that Google will see zero difference.   We aren't sure if this is true, since engines can get so _hung up on even one single difference in character.  _ We don't want to unnecessarily fracture the internal link structure of the site, so again - any feedback is welcome, thank you. 🙂

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile
                                    0
                                  • pulseseo

                                    Does Google crawl the pages which are generated via the site's search box queries?

                                    For example, if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled? I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site and hence am confused as to whether Google bots would be able to find it.

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pulseseo
                                    0
                                  • petrakraft

                                    What's your best hidden SEO secret?

                                    Don't take that question too serious but all answers are welcome 😉 Answer to all:
                                    "Gentlemen, I see you did you best - at least I hope so! But after all I suppose I am stuck here to go on reading the SEOmoz blog if I can't sqeeze more secrets from you!

                                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | petrakraft
                                    9

                                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                  Start my free trial
                                  Products
                                  • Moz Pro
                                  • Moz Local
                                  • Moz API
                                  • Moz Data
                                  • STAT
                                  • Product Updates
                                  Moz Solutions
                                  • SMB Solutions
                                  • Agency Solutions
                                  • Enterprise Solutions
                                  • Digital Marketers
                                  Free SEO Tools
                                  • Domain Authority Checker
                                  • Link Explorer
                                  • Keyword Explorer
                                  • Competitive Research
                                  • Brand Authority Checker
                                  • Local Citation Checker
                                  • MozBar Extension
                                  • MozCast
                                  Resources
                                  • Blog
                                  • SEO Learning Center
                                  • Help Hub
                                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                  • How-to Guides
                                  • Moz Academy
                                  • API Docs
                                  About Moz
                                  • About
                                  • Team
                                  • Careers
                                  • Contact
                                  Why Moz
                                  • Case Studies
                                  • Testimonials
                                  Get Involved
                                  • Become an Affiliate
                                  • MozCon
                                  • Webinars
                                  • Practical Marketer Series
                                  • MozPod
                                  Connect with us

                                  Contact the Help team

                                  Join our newsletter
                                  Moz logo
                                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                  • Accessibility
                                  • Terms of Use
                                  • Privacy

                                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.