Which is The Best Way to Handle Query Parameters?
-
Hi mozzers,
I would like to know the best way to handle query parameters.
Say my site is example.com. Here are two scenarios.
Scenario #1: Duplicate content
example.com/category?page=1
example.com/category?order=updated_at+DESC
example.com/category
example.com/category?page=1&sr=blog-headerAll have the same content.
Scenario #2: Pagination
example.com/category?page=1
example.com/category?page=2 and so on.What is the best way to solve both?
Do I need to use Rel=next and Rel=prev or is it better to use Google Webmaster tools parameter handling? Right now I am concerned about Google traffic only.
For solving the duplicate content issue, do we need to use canonical tags on each such URL's?
I am not using WordPress. My site is built on Ruby on Rails platform.
Thanks!
-
The new pagination advice is really tough to navigate. I have mixed feelings about rel=prev/next (hard to implement, doesn't work on Bing, etc.) but it seems generally reliable. If you have pagination AND parameters that impact pagination (like sorts), then you need to use prev/next and canonical tags. See the post Alan cited.
I actually do think NOINDEX works fine in many cases, if the paginated search (pages 2+) have little or no search value. It really depends on the situation and the scope, though. This can range from no big deal at all to a huge problem, depending on the site in question, so it's tough to give general advice.
I'm not having great luck with GWT parameter handling lately (as Alan said), especially on big sites. It just doesn't seem to work in certain situations, and I have no idea why Google ignores some settings and honors others. That one's driving me crazy, actually. It's easy to set up and you can try it, but I wouldn't count on it working.
-
no dont de-index them, just use prev next,
yes you are right it is only for google, i really can not give you an answer as what to do for both, you could use canonical for bing only. its a hard one
see this page, for more info http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
-
Which do you think is ideal?
De-Indexing Pages 2+ or simply using the rel=next, rel=prev? That's also only for Google right?
-
For the first senario use a canonical tag.
for the second use the prev next tags, this to google will make page one look like one big page with all the content of all the pages on it.
dont use parrametter handing, it is a last resort, it is only for google (though bing has its own), and its effectiveness has been questioned.
-
The problem is that we are talking about thousands of pages and manually doing it is close to impossible. Even if it can be engineered, it will take a lot of time. Unless Webmaster tools cannot effectively handle this situation, it doesn't make sense to go and change the site code.
-
Hi Mohit,
Seems like a waste of time to me when you can put a simple meta tag in there.
-
How about using parameter handling using Google Webmaster tools to ignore ?page=1, ?order=updated_at+DESC and so on. Does that work instead of including canonical tags on all such pages?
-
I can speak to the first scenario, that is exactly what the purpose of the rel="canonical" is for. Dynamic pages in which have a purpose for url appendages.Or in the rare case where you can't control your server (.httaccess) for 301 redirects.
As for pagination, I may not have the best answer as I have also been using rel="canonical" in those cases as well.
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's the best way to integrate off site inventory?
I can't seem to make any progress with my car dealership client in rankings or traffic. I feel like I've narrowed out most of the common problems, the only other thing I can see is that all their inventory is on a subdomain using a dedicated auto dealership software. Any suggestion of a better way to handle this situation? Am I missing something obvious? The url is rcautomotive.com Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | GravitateOnline0 -
Many errors in Search Console (strange parameters)
Hello, I have many strange parameters in my search console that make many 404 pages, for example: mywebsite.com/article-name/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjk4YjY4ZDExNTYxOTgzZTk6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNFvpYpYpYf9DoyRBBu8jbiQB8JcIQ mywebsite.com/article-name/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwj1zMLR0JbLAhUGM5oKHejjBJAQqQIILSgAMAk&usg=AFQjCNEBNFx3dG5B0-16X6eXTS7k-Srm6Q Can someone tell me how to solve it?
Technical SEO | | JohnPalmer0 -
Way to spider Wordpress site
I have an old Wordpress site and I want to move it to a new server and take it off Wordpress (too many hacks). I am trying to spider the site so as to get static, non-Wordpress, pages. I am having trouble doing this. When I spider the site, it changes the URLs. For instance, if the URL is www.domain.com/page/ the URL I get out of the spider is /page/index.html And those are not the URLs in the search engine indices. There are about 2000 pages on this site, so it is not feasible to set up 301 redirects. I tried using these spidering programs: WinHTTack Website Copier and PageNest Does anyone know of another method of turning a Wordpress site into a non Wordpress site?
Technical SEO | | DanCrean0 -
How to handle (internal) search result pages?
Hi Mozers, I'm not quite sure what the best way is to handle internal search pages. In this case it's for an ecommerce website with about 8.000+ products and search pages currently look like: example.com/search.php?search=QUERY+HERE. I'm leaning towards making them follow, noindex. Since pages like this can be easily abused for duplicate content and because I'd rather have the category pages ranked. How would you handle this?
Technical SEO | | Qon0 -
How best to optimise a website for more than one location?
I have a client who is a acupuncturist and operates clinics both in Chester and Knutsford in Cheshire the site performs well for Chester based terms such as "Chester acupuncture" this is the primary location the client wishes to focus efforts on but would also like to improve rankings for the Knutsford clinic and area. I have setup local places pages for each clinic and registered each on different local directories. Both clinic addresses are placed on each page of the website and have a map to each on the contact page. Most of the on-page SEO elements such as page titles, descriptions and on-page keywords mainly focus on the term "Chester" over "Knutsford" is it advisable to target both locations in these page elements or will local search have an effect on this and will reduce/ dilute overall rankings for Chester clinic? I haven't setup and separate page for each clinic location as this might help in terms of SEO for improving ranking for both locations but from a user point of view it would just duplicate the same content but for a different location and also would create duplicate content issues. Any advice/ experience on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
Best way to change from one CMS to wordpress??
I have a client that was working with another SEO consultant and they pretty much dropped the ball big time! The SEO company took his site off of wordpress and put it on another CMS (http://www.wsinetsuccess.com/WSI-E-Fusion). My client would like to take hes site off of the WSI E Fusion platform and back onto wordpress. My question is how is the best way to going about doing this with out loosing all of the PR to the site? Should I find all of the URLs that are on the site and just 301 them to the right page? Thank you very much for your help.
Technical SEO | | pakevin0 -
What is the best way to close my blog?
I have a blog on a separate address to my website. http://cheshireweddingphotographyblog.co.uk/ and http://celynnenphotography.co.uk Now I'm going to have a new website which is going to be wordpress based and it will sit on the main website (http://celynnenphotography.co.uk ) and include both gallery and blog. now the blog does well enough on google, etc.. so i wanted to mix their SEO juju and all that, but what happens with my blog? Do i: Stop paying for hosting, nice and simple. OR Do I need to do something?
Technical SEO | | IoanSaid0 -
What's the best way to deal with an entire existing site moving from http to https?
I have a client that just switched their entire site from the standard unsecure (http) to secure (https) because of over-zealous compliance issues for protecting personal information in the health care realm. They currently have the server setup to 302 redirect from the http version of a URL to the https version. My first inclination was to have them simply update that to a 301 and be done with it, but I'd prefer not to have to 301 every URL on the site. I know that putting a rel="canonical" tag on every page that refers to the http version of the URL is a best practice (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394), but should I leave the 302 redirects or update them to 301's. Something seems off to me about the search engines visiting an http page, getting 301 redirected to an https page and then being told by the canonical tag that it's actually the URL they were just 301 redirected from.
Technical SEO | | JasonCooper0