URL Parameter for Limiting Results
-
We have a category page that lists products. We have parameters and the default value is to limit the page to display 9 products. If the user wishes, they can view 15 products or 30 products on the same page. The parameter is ?limit=9 or ?limit=15 and so on. Google is recognizing this as duplicate meta tags and meta descriptions via HTML Suggestions. I have a couple questions.
1. What should be my goal? Is my goal to have Google crawl the page with 9 items or crawl the page with all items in the category?
In Search Console, the first part of setting up a URL parameter says "Does this parameter change page content seen by the user?". In my opinion, I think the answer is Yes.
Then, when I select how the parameter affects page content, I assume I'd choose Narrows because it's either narrowing or expanding the number of items displayed on the page.
2. When setting up my URL Parameters in Search Console, do I want to select Every URL or just let Googlebot decide? I'm torn because when I read about Every URL, it says this setting could result in Googlebot unnecessarily crawling duplicate content on your site (it's already doing that). When reading further, I begin to second guess the Narrowing option. Now I'm at a loss on what to do.
Any advice or suggestions will be helpful! Thanks.
-
Thanks for your help David - I apologize for my delayed response.
-
Hi Dustin,
Looks like the problem is that you have two canonical tags on your parameter pages.
eg. on lines 24 and 25 of the source code for this page https://www.stickylife.com/custom/vinyl-decals?limit=30 you'll see:
With more than one canonical tag on a page, Google will ignore both canonical tags - which is why you are getting duplicate issues.
You'll need to remove the second canonical tag to overcome your issues.
Cheers,
David
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
-
Google Fetch and Render - Partial result (resources temporarily unavailable)
Over the past few weeks, my website pages have been showing as partial in the Google Search Console. There are many resources/ files (js, css, images) that are 'temporarily unreachable'. The website files haven't had any structural changes for about 2 years (it historically has always shows as 'completed' and rendered absolutely fine in the search console). I have checked and the robots.txt is fine as is the sitemap. My host hasn't been very helpful, but has confirmed there are no server issues. My website rankings have now dropped which I think is due to these resources issues and I need to clear this issue up asap - can any one here offer any assistance? It would be hugely appreciated. Thanks, Dan
SERP Trends | | dan_550 -
Why rich snippets have disappeared in Google search results ?
Hello, Few weeks ago, we have implemented a snippets strategy in order to increase our ranking for our blog posts. That was successful and our results were showing up in Google. But today, every single snippet has disappeared. We go back to a simple search result, without snippets for us or for our competitors. It seems that Google has delete rich snippet for specific keywords because for the generic keywords (for exemple "inbound marketing definition" in our case), there is still a snippet result. Do you know if Google has changed snippets parameters for keywords with low search volume ? Thank you !
SERP Trends | | Laure-Nile0 -
Search results vary in chrome vs other browsers even in Incognito mode: Google's stand?
Hi all, We use incognito mode or private browsing to check the Actual results which are not impacted by previous history, location (sometimes), etc. Even we browse this way, we can see the different search results. Why would this happen? What's Google's stand on this? What is the actual way to browse to get the unbiased results for certain search queries? I have experienced that Chrome will rank our own websites bit higher compared to the other browsers even in incognito mode. Thanks
SERP Trends | | vtmoz1 -
Which is the best and quick way to remove URL(s) from Google,Bing search engines?
"Remove URL", "Set Expiry in meta tag", "no index no follow " or some thing else.
SERP Trends | | ankit.rahevar0 -
External URLs - ones you can't reach out
My fellow Mozzers, I have been reviewing our Google Webmaster error reports and noticed high url errors. These URLs are generated from international sites, mainly China. Upon further inspection, these look to be links to dynamic URLs that are no longer active on our site. (search pages) China is linking to old URLs that simply spew out a 'Bad Request' pages now. Problems I face is that: I can't contact these chinese sites to remove/edit the URLs. I could work with my developers to identify the urls and direct them all to the homepage, but is that good. The URLs are still present. Some of these look like pages that haven't been updated in a while, so now I have links from sites that are archived, or "dead" Have you tackled anything like this before? Thoughts are welcome Thanks
SERP Trends | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
What are realistic goals for local serch results?
I have a brand new domain, 2 months old, and am just finishing design. What are realistic goals for the 1rst year in local search results? My competition appears to be the local directories. Manta, yellowpages, angieslist, BBB and so on. Is it realistic to expect to eventually outrank them for the local search terms? (City Service Keyword) If so, what is a realistic time frame for someone putting in 10 to 15 hours a week on SEO, Including content creation. This was the humbling report I just ran. Looks like my choices are to beat them or pay them excessive amounts of money. http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty/results.html?commit=Run+Report&date=2013-02-19&engine_id=96&keywords=Lakeville+snow+plowing&utf8=✓
SERP Trends | | dwallner0 -
How to get Google Results for Did You Mean | Showing results for
If someone misspells our company name in Google, how do I get google to display **Did You Mean: **xyz. Our company name is difficult to spell and could be spelled multiple ways. What is the trick to this?
SERP Trends | | hfranz0