Query strings in Canoncials URLs
-
Video on my site all resides at www.mydomain.com/video in a player that does not assign unique URLs for each video. We may be able to rewrite the URLs to include a unique identifier found in the video's metadata (www.mydomain.com/video/?bctid=17769780). If I did this, how would it impact the canonical URL? Do the SEs accept canonicals with query strings? What if I only changed the canonical URL and did not change the video's URL? Would that be a problem?
-
the canonical tag must go to a valid url that is unique per video. you need to update the canonical and url at the same time.
-
Would it be a problem if I used a canonical with a query string but did not change the video URL? A new tracking system we'd like to use is based off of the canonical URL. So for tracking reasons we want to append the canonical URL with the video's unique ID. Making this change is easy, but to change the actual video URLs will require a bit more dev work. Is this going to cause problems?
-
If your video URL is www.mydomain.com/video/?bctid=1776978, then your canonical tag should be this as well. Canonical Tag will essentially help you get rid of possible duplicate content issue when the CMS generates URLs like: www.mydomain.com/video/?bctid=17769780&whatever=here www.mydomain.com/video/?bctid=17769780&display=fullscreen and so on. Does that help. ? in the Canonical Tag is not a problem.
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
-
How handle pages with "read more" text query strings?
My site has hundreds of keyword content landing pages that contain one or two sections of "read more" text that work by calling the page and changing a ChangeReadMore variable. This causes the page to currently get indexed 5 times (see examples below plus two more with anchor tag set to #sectionReadMore2 This causes Google to include the first version of the page which is the canonical version and exclude the other 4 versions of the page. Google search console says my site has 4.93K valid pages and 13.8K excluded pages. My questions are: 1. Does having a lot of excluded pages which are all copies of included pages hurt my domain authority or otherwise hurt my SEO efforts? 2. Should I add a rel="nofollow" attribute to the read more link? If I do this will Google reduce the number of excluded pages? 3. Should I instead add logic so the canonical tag displays the exact URL each time the page re-displays in another readmore mode? I assume this would increase my "included pages" and decrease the number of "excluded pages". Would this somehow help my SEO efforts? EXAMPLE LINKS https://www.tpxonline.com/Marketplace/Used-AB-Dick-Presses-For-Sale.asp https://www.tpxonline.com/Marketplace/Used-AB-Dick-Presses-For-Sale.asp?ChangeReadMore=More#sectionReadMore1 https://www.tpxonline.com/Marketplace/Used-AB-Dick-Presses-For-Sale.asp?ChangeReadMore=Less#sectionReadMore1
Technical SEO | | DougHartline0 -
Schema query
Hello All, I have implemented schema on product page. On My product page at left section there is one section i.e. "Popular Products" in that 5 Popular products are listed. Now when I visit ABCD product page then in "Popular Product" section also out of 5 products this ABCD product also listed. Finally when I check structured data testing tool in that following details are available for products - @type, @id, image, name, url, sku, category, description, offers & offers all details, Brand & brands all details ...now after that there in "Is Related To" in that five products following details are there - @type, @id, image, name, url & offers that's it. So my query is, is this consider as duplicate? or no issue at all with google? Thanks! 6dHvQ
Technical SEO | | wright3350 -
URL Format
Often we have web platforms that have a default URL structure that looks something like this www.widgetcompany.co.uk/widget-gallery/coloured-widgets/red-widgets This format is quite well structured but would it just be more effective to be www.widgetcompany.co.uk/red-widgets? I realise that it may depend on a lot of factors but generally is it better to have the shorter URL if targeting the key phrase "red widgets" One thing, it certainly looks a bit keyword stuffy with all those "widgets"
Technical SEO | | vital_hike0 -
URL not indexed but shows in results?
We are working on a site that has a whole section that is not indexed (well a few pages are). There is also a problem where there are 2 directories that are the same content and it is the incorrect directory with the indexed URLs. The problem is if I do a search in Google to find a URL - typically location + term then I get the URL (from the wrong directory) up there in the top 5. However, do a site: for that URL and it is not indexed! What could be going on here? There is nothing in robots or the source, and GWT fetch works fine.
Technical SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
3 URLS Being Created All For The Same Page
I use wordpress for my blog and for some reason it is creating triple urls for my pages. I am not sure it has always been like this or not. I just noticed it in the errors section of SEO Moz. http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/ It's all the exact same page. Is there something I can do in my settings to make this stop. I don't imagine this is good. Ya think....ha! I saw this is the SEO Moz error area for Missing Title Tags. Apparently the number has gone from 200 to 400 which is weird because I never gave my blog posts meta stuff and I haven't written 200 pages since SEO Moz's last crawl.
Technical SEO | | annasusmiles
Maybe I changed something on my blog settings without even knowing. I can't think for the life of me what that would be though. Thanks so much and I appreciate any help received. Edited to add: I added some plugins over the past week. Maybe it's one of these? Category Text Category SEO Meta Tags (just deactivated this one) PhotoSmash (also deactivated this one) Clicky for WordPress0 -
How to find original URLS after Hosting Company added canonical URLs, URL rewrites and duplicate content.
We recently changed hosting companies for our ecommerce website. The hosting company added some functionality such that duplicate content and/or mirrored pages appear in the search engines. To fix this problem, the hosting company created both canonical URLs and URL rewrites. Now, we have page A (which is the original page with all the link juice) and page B (which is the new page with no link juice or SEO value). Both pages have the same content, with different URLs. I understand that a canonical URL is the way to tell the search engines which page is the preferred page in cases of duplicate content and mirrored pages. I also understand that canonical URLs tell the search engine that page B is a copy of page A, but page A is the preferred page to index. The problem we now face is that the hosting company made page A a copy of page B, rather than the other way around. But page A is the original page with the seo value and link juice, while page B is the new page with no value. As a result, the search engines are now prioritizing the newly created page over the original one. I believe the solution is to reverse this and make it so that page B (the new page) is a copy of page A (the original page). Now, I would simply need to put the original URL as the canonical URL for the duplicate pages. The problem is, with all the rewrites and changes in functionality, I no longer know which URLs have the backlinks that are creating this SEO value. I figure if I can find the back links to the original page, then I can find out the original web address of the original pages. My question is, how can I search for back links on the web in such a way that I can figure out the URL that all of these back links are pointing to in order to make that URL the canonical URL for all the new, duplicate pages.
Technical SEO | | CABLES0 -
Is there actual risk to having multiple URLs that frame in main url? Or is it just bad form and waste of money?
Client has many urls that just frame in the main site. It seems like a total waste of money, but if they are frames, is there an actual risk?
Technical SEO | | gravityseo0 -
Not sure which URL to use for 301 redirect
A client has new website design completed by another developer, was launched in April of this year. No 301 redirect was set up so duplicate content is an issue. Client has had a website with same domain name for about 10 years, but has not had any SEO work completed before or since his new site design. For non-www there are 6 referring links - 1 considered to have authority, for www there are also 6 but 3 considered to have authority. More links seem to coming from www than non-www. But for one of the clients keywords they are ranked #1 for their area and that links to their non-www address. And even though no redirects set up by developer, non-www has had far more visits according to Google Analytics. So many basics that still need to be done for site: no meta-descriptions on any page, H1 and page titles could use keywords, call to action moved above fold, etc. Considering this is a new site, and new SEO work and many more inbound links needed, does it matter which address I redirect to? _Cindy Barnard
Technical SEO | | CeCeBar0