Which is best of narrow by search URLs? Canonical or NOINDEX
-
I have set canonical to all narrow by search URLs. I think, it's not working well. You can get more idea by following URLs.
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?material_search=1328
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?finish_search=146
These kind of page have canonical tag which is pointing to following one.
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps
Because, it's actual page which I want to out rank.
But, all narrow by search URLs have very different products compare to base URLs. So, How can we say it duplicate one?
Which is best solution for it. Canonical or NOINDEX it by Robots?
-
It can be frustrating, but definitely give any change time to work (unless it seems like it's actually harming you). It can take Google a long time to re-index/re-cache deep pages, even if they visit your site daily.
-
Dr. Peter J. Meyers
After long discussion, I can conclude that, I have to go with NOINDEX. Let's see what happen in next 4 months. Then, I will re-evaluate it for better performance. As per your suggestion, it's quite tricky to change tactics on weekly bases and it may not help us more in same direction. Thanks for your valuable time on my question and prompt reply on each question.
-
That's pretty much typical search pagination. You can use NOINDEX on pages 2+, but Google currently recommends the rel=prev/next tags:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
The new tags seems to be working better over the past few months, but they can be tricky to implement, as they're different for every page (you have to create them dynamically). Historically, I've found that NOINDEX works pretty well for search pagination.
In this particular case, you wouldn't want to use canonical tags. Pagination is a bit unique. Unfortunately, even within internal search, different aspects can require different tags. It gets tricky fast these days.
-
Dr. Peter J. Meyers
Sorry, I'm a bit confused, because these sample URLs/situations seem very different from the ones you originally asked about.
I have changed URL structure in entire website and make it more SEO friendly.
but if your index exploded and you've got hundreds or thousands of thin pages, it may be worth doing in the short-term.
I have attached Index Status for Vista Stores screenshot to know more about it.
There are 12,000 product pages + 100 categories + 30 blog posts + 20 static pages + 1 home page = 12,151 pages are important for me and want to index and rank well.
Now, rest of pages are not duplicate ~ not near duplicate or true duplicate.
Just have a look at following pages.
http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/p-2
http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/p-3
Why should I set canonical tag pointing to base URL as follow. Because, page 2 and 3 does not contain any single product which is available on base page. So, Can we calculate as a duplicate? OR Will Google count as duplicate.
-
Sorry, I'm a bit confused, because these sample URLs/situations seem very different from the ones you originally asked about. Search filters vs. sorts vs. pagination all have potentially different solutions and implementing them on a large e-commerce site is very tricky.
Typically, rel=prev/next is better for pagination. For filters, you can use rel-canonical or NOINDEX, but it's often better to try to block some parameters from being crawled at all.
In the examples, you just gave, I suspect that rel-canonical may not have worked properly because Google saw the pages as being too differently. Honestly, though, for deep pages like this, it can also just come down to time. Sometimes, it takes Google quite a while to honor the tags.
There's no harm in trying NOINDEX, but I'd give it time. Don't change tactics every couple of weeks, or you could end up with even more mess.
A canonicalization strategy that covers your entire site is well beyond the scope of Q&A, I'm afraid. It's very tricky on large sites, and I've often found that the results have to be measured and strategies adjusted as you go. You can do it by the book and still have Google ignore it. It depends a lot on your internal architecture and link structure.
Ideally, control the crawl structure first. The less of these duplicates that are available for Google to crawl, the better. Canonical is often effective, but it's also a band-aid in situations like these. NOINDEX sometimes works better, but it's also a patch, too often.
You could use NOINDEX in concert with blocking some of the parameters in Google Webmaster Tools. I don't think it's an ideal long-term solution, but if your index exploded and you've got hundreds or thousands of thin pages, it may be worth doing in the short-term.
-
Dr. Peter J. Meyers
I'm coming back on this question after 5 months. I have implemented Canonical tag to following pages. But, It did not work well and indexed too many duplicate content.
Narrow by search:
http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/manufacturer-boss
http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/manufacturer-boss/material-search-caressoftSorting:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/order-positionNumber of products:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/limit-100/order-positionPagination:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/limit-100/order-position/p-4Right now, I have removed Canonical tag to entire website and implement NOINDEX Follow meta robots.I am really confuse between Canonical and NOINDEX Follow.Can you give me exact solution for my current CMS structure?
-
I generally agree with Alan (although I think NOINDEX, FOLLOW is ok, since these pages are unlikely to have external/inbound links), but there's no perfect solution for these types of pages. They aren't exact duplicates, but they may look low value to search. Given our current tools, canonical may be your best choice.
If you're talking about a couple-dozen pages, it's no big deal, and you could leave them alone. If the different filters are spinning out 100s of variants, then I would control them somehow.
-
Canonical, dont use noindex in robots,
By using no index by robotes, you lose all the link juice of any link pointing to the no-indexed pages.
If the pages are not duplicates, then dont do anything, let them all rank.
-
I was reading a lot about this, and the better solution is using more than one method.
There is a post in SEO MOZ Blog from Lindsay that I think will answer your question: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/robot-access-indexation-restriction-techniques-avoiding-conflicts
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
-
Adding a parameter to the URL / URL Stracture
Dear Community, I would like to ask a question regarding url structure. We are struggling with shorting urls and we thought to add a "parameter" to the url. Example: domain.com/product**/a/** or domain.com**/a/**product/ Current url structure: domain.com/product/ So we go after and short url contains "/a/" and find the category we want. Is this going to harm our SEO strategies? Any idea is welcome.
Technical SEO | | geofil0 -
Sitelinks only show when the URL is searched- Why don't they show when our company name is searched?
Why is is that when I search "protonmail.ch", sitelinks show for our company. However when you search for "ProtonMail", no sitelinks show, even though our homepage is now on the top result. We've been trying different things to improve the navigational structure of the homepage, such as using the <nav>tag. If you have any thoughts on why sitelinks might not be showing up, we'd really appreciate it! Thank you </nav>
Technical SEO | | kevinzh0 -
301 for a Very Long URL
Hey gang, Thanks ahead of time for the help. I have a url somehow that is very very long: http://www.colbysphotography.com/wedding-caterers-knoxville-east-tennessee/Here is an extensive list of wedding venues in the Knoxville and East Tennessee region. If you find that any of these links are not working, that the venues are no longer in business, or have a suggestion for an additional venue (at no charge), please contact Colby. Colby's Photography works hard on keeping this list helpful. I have tried Yoast Premium on a wordpress site to redirect the url but it doesn't seem to keep. I've tried a few other redirect plugins with not help either. I would love some suggestions on this one! Colby
Technical SEO | | littlecolby0 -
Canonical Tag Here?
Hello, I have a client who I have taken on (different to my other client in another question), My client has a ecommerce website and in nearly all of his products (around 30-40) he has a little information checklist like.. Made in the UK
Technical SEO | | Prestige-SEO
Prices from 9.99
Top quality
Free delivery on orders over.. This is the duplicate content, what is the best practise for this as the SEOmoz crawler is giving me a multiple of errors.0 -
Rel=Canonical
Any downsides to adding the rel=canonical tag to the canonical page itself? It will make it easier for us to implement based on the way our site's templates work. For example, we would add to the page http://www.mysite.com/original-page.aspx The canonical tag would also appear on other dupe pages like: http://www.mysite.com/original-page.aspx?ref=93929299 http://www.mysite.com/original-page.aspx?ref=view29199292 etc
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Double byte characters in the URL - best avoided?
We are doing some optimisation on sites in the APAC region, namely China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. We have set the url generator to automatically use the heading of the page in the URL which works fine for countries using Latin characters, but is causing problems, particularly in IE, when it comes to the double byte countries. For some reason, IE struggles with double byte and displays URLs in their rather ugly, coded form. Anybody got any suggestions on whether we should persist with the keyword URLs or revert to the non-descriptive URLs for the double byte countries? The reason I ask is it's a balance of SEO benefit vs not scaring IE users off with ugly URLs that look dreadful and spammy.
Technical SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
URL Length
What is the ideal length for an item's URL. Theirs a few different options. A) www.mydomain.com/item-name B) www.mydomain.com/category-name/product-name C) www.mydomain.com/category-name/sub-category-name/product-name Please choose A, B, or C and explain why you made that decision. Looking forward to the responses.
Technical SEO | | Romancing0 -
Canonical Tag
Does it do anything to place the Canonical tag on the unique page itself? I thought this was only to be used on the offending pages that are the copies. Thanks
Technical SEO | | poolguy0