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.
URL Masking or Cloaking?
-
Hi Guy's,
On our webshop we link from our menu to categories were we want to rank on in Google. Because the menu is sitewide i guess Google finds the categories in the menu important and meaby let them score better (onside links)
The problem that i'm facing with is that we make difference in Gender. In the menu we have: Man and Woman. Links from the menu go to: /categorie?gender=1/ and /category?gender=2/. But we don't want to score on gender but on the default URL.
For example:
- Focus keyword = Shoes
- Menu Man link: /shoes?gender=1
- Menu Woman link: /shoes?gender=2
But we only want to rank on /shoes/. But that URL is not placed in the menu. Every URL with: "?" has a follow noindex.
So i was thinking to make a link in the menu, on man and woman: /shoes/, but on mouse down (program it that way) ?=gender. Is this cloaking for Google?
What we also could do is make a canonical to the /shoes/ page. But i don't know if we get intern linking value on ?gender pages that have a canonical.
Hope it makes senses
Advises are also welcome, such as: Place al the default URL's in the footer. -
That's true, they append parameters tracking where you came from, which looks like it can affect the navigation you're seeing on the left. They're making sure that Google doesn't get confused by using a canonical on their pages, like Mike, Eric and I have recommended.
-
This website is doing the same:
On the left filters... When you hover over a link it's different from the actual URL when visiting it.
-
Hi there,
Like Mike and Eric have said, I'd recommend using a canonical tag on the men's and women's pages to the version of the page that shows both genders' shoes/clothing.
That said, I just want to make sure this is the best path for your site. If it makes more sense for your site to point people to shoes and clothing by gender, shouldn't that be what you show in Google's search results? I'm a woman, and generally search for "women's shoes" since otherwise I often end up on pages that show men's options.
Let us know if these solutions work!
Kristina
-
So to clarify when you say "menu" are you talking about faceted navigation or are you talking about actual page navigation (near header/footer)? If it's faceted, then you should canonical back to the main page so you're not competing with other pages on your site (/mens-shoes or /womens-shoes). If you canonical the men's or women's page back to the main /shoes/ page then you will lose the benefit of those pages.
Does the site only work off of parameters, or do you have separate pages for different genders?
-
You might be better served by using a canonical to point the parameters to the base page. I.E. /shoes?gender=1 with a rel="canonical" pointing at "/shoes". Depends on the variety of the content of the pages, if you're cannibalizing your own keywords, etc.
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
-
What is the proper URL length? in seo
i learned that having 50 to 60 words in a url is ok and having less words is preferable by google. but i would like to know that as i am gonna include keywords in the urls and i am afraid it will increase the length. is it gonna slighlty gonna hurt me? my competitors have 8 characters domain url and keywords length of 13 and my site has 15 character domain url and keywords length of 13 which one will be prefered by google.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | calvinkj0 -
What to do with internal spam url's google indexed?
I am in SEO for years but never met this problem. I have client who's web page was hacked and there was posted many, hundreds of links, These links has been indexed by google. Actually these links are not in comments but normal external urls's. See picture. What is the best way to remove them? use google disavow tool or just redirect them to some page? The web page is new, but ranks good on google and has domain authority 24. I think that these spam url's improved rankings too 🙂 What would be the best strategy to solve this. Thanks. k9Bviox
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AndrisZigurs0 -
Do we lose Backlinks and Domain Authority of URL when we change domain Name?
Have 1 performing domain (Monthly - 4M visitor ) now we want to change domain name ( Brand name like SEOMOZ to Moz ). I have general knowledge about domain changing prevention tips like 301 redirection and other thing. My concern is about backlinks and DA. How can I prevent any lose from SEO Point of view. (backlink lose) Do I need to change all backlink form source or redirection is enough to get all reference traffic from that backlinks?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Why to add a product id in the url
Hello ! shop.com/en/2628-buy-key-origin-the-sims-4-seasons/ Why will people use a product id in the link? Is there any advantage like better ranking or else?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kh-priyam0 -
Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain
Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
www.domainname.com.au/MY
domainname.com.au/malaysia
malaysia.domainname.com.au
my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂0 -
One page with multiple sections - unique URL for each section
Hi All, This is my first time posting to the Moz community, so forgive me if I make any silly mistakes. A little background: I run a website that for a company that makes custom parts out of specialty materials. One of my strategies is to make high quality content about all areas of these specialty materials to attract potential customers - pretty strait-forward stuff. I have always struggled with how to structure my content; from a usability point of view, I like just having one page for each material, with different subsections covering covering different topical areas. Example: for a special metal material I would have one page with subsections about the mechanical properties, thermal properties, available types, common applications, etc. Basically how Wikipedia organizes its content. I do not have a large amount of content for each section, but as a whole it makes one nice cohesive page for each material. I do use H tags to show the specific sections on the page, but I am wondering if it may be better to have one page dedicated to the specific material properties, one page dedicated to specific applications, and one page dedicated to available types. What are the communities thoughts on this? As a user of the website, I would rather have all of the information on a single, well organized page for each material. But what do SEO best practices have to say about this? My last thought would be to create a hybrid website (I don't know the proper term). Have a look at these examples from Time and Quartz. When you are viewing a article, the URL is unique to that page. However, when you scroll to the bottom of the article, you can keep on scrolling into the next article, with a new unique URL - all without clicking through to another page. I could see this technique being ideal for a good web experience while still allowing me to optimize my content for more specific topics/keywords. If I used this technique with the Canonical tag would I then get the best of both worlds? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you for the help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jaspercurry0 -
Does Trade Mark in URL matter to Google
Hello community! We are planning to clean up TM and R in the URLs on the website. Google has indexed these pages but some TM pages are have " " " instead displaying in URL from SERP. What's your thoughts on a "spring cleaning" effort to remove all TM and R and other unsafe characters in URLs? Will this impact indexed pages and ranking etc? Thank you! b.dig
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | b.digi0 -
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title. For example: I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about" Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat? If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end? Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique? Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | keeot0