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
-
Query string parameters always bad for SEO?
I've recently put some query string parameters into links leading to a 'request a quote' form which auto-fill the 'product' field with the name of the product that is on the referring product page. E.g. Red Bicycle product page >>> Link to RFQ form contains '?productname=Red-Bicycle' >>>> form's product field's default value becomes 'Red-Bicycle' I know url parameters can lead to keyword cannibalisation and duplicate content, we use sub-domains for our language changer. BUT for something like this, am I potentially damaging our SEO? Appreciate I've not explained this very well. We're using Kentico by the way, so K# macros are a possibility (I use a simple one to fill the form's Default Field).
Technical SEO | | landport0 -
How to fix google index filled with redundant parameters
Hi All This follows on from a previous question (http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-fix-google-index-after-fixing-site-infected-with-malware) that on further investigation has become a much broader problem. I think this is an issue that may plague many sites following upgrades from CMS systems. First a little history. A new customer wanted to improve their site ranking and SEO. We discovered the site was running an old version of Joomla and had been hacked. URL's such as http://domain.com/index.php?vc=427&Buy_Pinnacle_Studio_14_Ultimate redirected users to other sites and the site was ranking for buy adobe or buy microsoft. There was no notification in webmaster tools that the site had been hacked. So an upgrade to a later version of Joomla was required and we implemented SEF URLs at the same time. This fixed the hacking problem, we now had SEF url's, fixed a lot of duplicate content and added new titles and descriptions. Problem is that after a couple of months things aren't really improving. The site is still ranking for adobe and microsoft and a lot of other rubbish and the urls like http://domain.com/index.php?vc=427&Buy_Pinnacle_Studio_14_Ultimate are still sending visitors but to the home page as are a lot of the old redundant urls with parameters in them. I think it is default behavior for a lot of CMS systems to ignore parameters it doesn't recognise so http://domain.com/index.php?vc=427&Buy_Pinnacle_Studio_14_Ultimate displays the home page and gives a 200 response code. My theory is that Google isn't removing these pages from the index because it's getting a 200 response code from old url's and possibly penalizing the site for duplicate content (which don't showing up in moz because there aren't any links on the site to these url's) The index in webmaster tools is showing over 1000 url's indexed when there are only around 300 actual url's. It also shows thousands of url's for each parameter type most of which aren't used. So my question is how to fix this, I don't think 404's or similar are the answer because there are so many and trying to find each combination of parameter would be impossible. Webmaster tools advises not to make changes to parameters but even so I don't think resetting or editing them individually is going to remove them and only change how google indexes them (if anyone knows different please let me know) Appreciate any assistance and also any comments or discussion on this matter. Regards, Ian
Technical SEO | | iragless0 -
Best Schema Advice
Hi, I am new here and I have searched for but not got a definitive answer for this. I am sorting out a website which is a scaffolding company operating in a particular area. They are only interested in targeting a particular area and from what I have read through here I need to mark the site up with schema mentioning their company name and address. My issue is that I seem to find lots of conflicting advice about what should go it and how it should be laid out. I would love to know peoples opinions on where the best guide for setting up schema correctly for a site like this. They use wordpress, I am ok with inserting code to the site etc, I just want to make sure I get it right from the start. Once I have done this, I understand that I need to get local citations using the same NAP as how the site is marked up. Sorry for what might seem like a daft question but I am a designer and I am still learning the ins and outs of SEO. Thanks
Technical SEO | | kirstyseo0 -
How can I best handle parameters?
Thank you for your help in advance! I've read a ton of posts on this forum on this subject and while they've been super helpful I still don't feel entirely confident in what the right approach I should take it. Forgive my very obvious noob questions - I'm still learning! The problem: I am launching a site (coursereport.com) which will feature a directory of schools. The directory can be filtered by a handful of fields listed below. The URL for the schools directory will be coursereport.com/schools. The directory can be filtered by a number of fields listed here: Focus (ex: “Data Science”) Cost (ex: “$<5000”) City (ex: “Chicago”) State/Province (ex: “Illinois”) Country (ex: “Canada”) When a filter is applied to the directories page the CMS produces a new page with URLs like these: coursereport.com/schools?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago coursereport.com/schools?cost=$>5000&city=buffalo&state=newyork My questions: 1) Is the above parameter-based approach appropriate? I’ve seen other directory sites that take a different approach (below) that would transform my examples into more “normal” urls. coursereport.com/schools?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago VERSUS coursereport.com/schools/focus/datascience/cost/$<5000/city/chicago (no params at all) 2) Assuming I use either approach above isn't it likely that I will have duplicative content issues? Each filter does change on page content but there could be instance where 2 different URLs with different filters applied could produce identical content (ex: focus=datascience&city=chicago OR focus=datascience&state=illinois). Do I need to specify a canonical URL to solve for that case? I understand at a high level how rel=canonical works, but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what versions of the filtered results ought to be specified as the preferred versions. For example, would I just take all of the /schools?focus=X combinations and call that the canonical version within any filtered page that contained other additional parameters like cost or city? Should I be changing page titles for the unique filtered URLs? I read through a few google resources to try to better understand the how to best configure url params via webmaster tools. Is my best bet just to follow the advice on the article below and define the rules for each parameter there and not worry about using rel=canonical ? https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1235687 An assortment of the other stuff I’ve read for reference: http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/seo-clean-urls http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3857-SEO-When-Product-Facets-and-Filters-Fail http://www.searchenginejournal.com/five-steps-to-seo-friendly-site-url-structure/59813/ http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/07/improved-handling-of-urls-with.html
Technical SEO | | alovallo0 -
How to Remove Old Comment Page Query String URLs
I used to use a comments program on my website that created comment pages in the form of http://www.example.com/web-page.htm?comm_page=2. When I switched to a new comments program, I worried that these old comment URLs would be considered duplicate content. I created a 301 redirect that, for example, would redirect http://www.example.com/web-page.htm?comm_page=2 to http://www.example.com/web-page.htm and disallowed them in robots.txt, which I later learned was not the thing to do.. I have removed the URLs from being disallowed in robots.txt. However, many months later, these comment page URLs keep appearing in Google's index from time to time. I use the "Remove URLs" tool in Google Webmaster Tools to remove the URLs from Google's index, but more URLs appear a few days later. How can I get rid of these URLs for good? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MrFrost0 -
How do you handle Wordpress sitemaps within your site?
I have a regular site map on my site and I also have a Wordpress site installed within it that we use for blog/news content. I currently have an auto-sitemap generator installed in Wordpress which automatically updates the sitemap and submits it to the search engines each time the blog is updated. The question I have (which I think I know the answer to but I just want to confirm) is do I have to include all of the articles within the blog in the main site's sitemap despite the Wordpress sitemap having them in there already? If I do include the articles in the main website's sitemap, they would also be in the Wordpress sitemap as well, which is redundant. Redundancy is not good, so I just want to make sure.
Technical SEO | | iresqkeith0 -
Is There A Way To Automatically Ping Your New Content
Hi I believe that if you have wordpress then you can automatically ping your site with new content but I am using joomla and would like to know if you can do it with this type of site. I write lots of articles each day and it takes time to keep ping each article so i am wondering if there is an easy way of doing it.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Best Strategy For Multiple Geographic Targets
I have a client who operates and gets business from several cities in the same geographic area. Does anyone have suggestions that will allow him to get leads for the same service from multiple cities. Any help appreciated.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0