Duplicate content via dynamic URLs where difference is only parameter order?
-
I have a question about the order of parameters in an URL versus duplicate content issues. The URLs would be identical if the parameter order was the same.
E.g.
www.example.com/page.php?color=red&size=large&gender=male versus
www.example.com/page.php?gender=male&size=large&color=redHow smart is Google at consolidating these, and do these consolidated pages incur any penalty (is their combined “weight” equal to their individual selves)?
Does Google really see these two pages as DISTINCT, or does it recognize that they are the same because they have the exact same parameters?
Is this worth fixing in or does it have a trivial impact?
If we have to fix it and can't change our CMS, should we set a preferred, canonical order for these URLs or 301 redirect from one version to the other?
Thanks a million!
-
To be fair to Highland, I do think canonical is a good bet here, but I just have to comment that I don't think Google handles these kinds of URLs very well. They should, in theory, but in my experience they rarely do. The problem with order variants is that you can easily spin 100s or 1000s of them and create serious indexation and ranking problems.
For this particular example, the canonical tag is probably best, but there may be cases where certain parameters have no particular value (like a "sort by" parameter). Those are sometimes better off blocked.
I cover a bunch of examples in my mega-post on duplicate content:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
-
Agreed with Highland, this seems exactly the kind of problem canonical can fix. I wouldn't go down the road of 301ing because for parameters that simple you like aren't going to run into problems. The rule of thumb is you should act if you have more than two parameters in the URL (not sure where I read that), but I've seen Google 'figure out' up to 4 for some of my sites.
Another thing to check out is Google webmaster tools, you can set certain keywords and url parameters there to help Google 'learn' how to crawl your site. This Google blog posting might help too:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html
-
Google should recognize the difference but, just to be safe, I would add a canonical to your page so you don't have anything to worry about.
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 to do with dynamically translated content sharing same urls?
We've just added to an originally English website, Italian and German translations. User can switch between them with right hand drop down language selection menu; then the entire page will be translated (including menu, body, footer) but the urls remain the same. The Italian page have some meta data (titles and descriptions) translated as well. Is it going to be a significantly negative effect on SEO to have the translated pages sharing the same urls?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | D2i0 -
Could duplicate (copied) content actually hurt a domain?
Hi 🙂 I run a small wordpress multisite network where the main site which is an informative portal about the Langhe region in Italy, and the subsites are websites of small local companies in the tourism and wine/food niche. As an additional service for those who build a website with us, I was thinking about giving them the possibility to use some ouf our portal's content (such as sights, events etc) on their website, in an automatic way. Not as an "SEO" plus, but more as a service for their current users/visitors base: so if you have a B&B you can have on your site an "events" section with curated content, or a section about thing to see (monuments, parks, museums, etc) in that area, so that your visitors can enjoy reading some content about the territory. I was wondering if, apart from NOT being benefical, it would be BAD from an SEO point of view... ie: if they could be actually penlized by google. Thanks 🙂 Best
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Enrico_Cassinelli0 -
Duplicate content across different domains in different countries?
Hi Guys, We have a 4 sites One in NZ, UK, Canada and Australia. All geo-targeting their respective countries in Google Search Console. The sites are identical. We recently added the same content to all 4 sites. Will this cause duplicate content issues or any issues even though they are in different countries and geo-targeting is set? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickstar0 -
Migrating From Parameter-Driven URL's to 'SEO Friendly URL's (Slugs)
Hi all, hope you're all good and having a wonderful Friday morning. At the moment we have over 20,000+ live products on our ecomms site, however, all of the products are using non-seo friendly URL's (/product?p=1738 etc) and we're looking at deploying SEO friendly url's such as (/product/this-is-product-one) etc. As you could imagine, making such a change on a big ecomms site will be a difficult task and we will have to take on A LOT of content changes, href-lang changes, affiliate link tests and a big 301 task. I'm trying to get some analysis together to pitch the Tech guys, but it's difficult, I do understand that this change has it's benefits for SEO, usability and CTR - but I need some more info. Keywords in the slugs - what is it's actual SEO weight? Has anyone here recently converted from using parameter based URL's to keyword-based slugs and seen results? Also, what are the best ways of deploying this? Add a canonical and 301? All comments greatly appreciated! Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Contextual FAQ and FAQ Page, is this duplicate content?
Hi Mozzers, On my website, I have a FAQ Page (with the questions-responses of all the themes (prices, products,...)of my website) and I would like to add some thematical faq on the pages of my website. For example : adding the faq about pricing on my pricing page,... Is this duplicate content? Thank you for your help, regards. Jonathan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanLeplang0 -
2-websites focused on different markets but similar content
Hi all! I have a client who wants to branch out to another market (currently in Northern California and wants to open an office in Southern California), what would happen if we put up a second website that has similar content, but is exclusively for Southern California, with a different office address, and all the content geared towards Southern California market? There would be NO linking between the sites. Would that generate a penalty? Thanks! BB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBuck0 -
Multiply domains and duplicate content confusion
I've just found out that a client has multiple domains which are being indexed by google and so leading me to worry that they will be penalised for duplicate content. Wondered if anyone could confirm a) are we likely to be penalised? and b) what should we do about it? (i'm thinking just 301 redirect each domain to the main www.clientdomain.com...?). Actual domain = www.clientdomain.com But these also exist: www.hostmastr.clientdomain.com www.pop.clientdomain.com www.subscribers.clientdomain.com www.www2.clientdomain.com www.wwwww.clientdomain.com ps I have NO idea how/why all these domains exist I really appreciate any expertise on this issue, many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bisibee10 -
SEOMoz mistaking image pages as duplicate content
I'm getting duplicate content errors, but it's for pages with high-res images on them. Each page has a different, high-res image on it. But SEOMoz keeps telling me it's duplicate content, even though the images are different (and named different). Is this something I can ignore or will Google see it the same way too?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JHT0