Can I, in Google's good graces, check for Googlebot to turn on/off tracking parameters in URLs?
-
Basically, we use a number of parameters in our URLs for event tracking. Google could be crawling an infinite number of these URLs. I'm already using the canonical tag to point at the non-tracking versions of those URLs....that doesn't stop the crawling tho.
I want to know if I can do conditional 301s or just detect the user agent as a way to know when to NOT append those parameters.
Just trying to follow their guidelines about allowing bots to crawl w/out things like sessionID...but they don't tell you HOW to do this.
Thanks!
-
No problem Ashley!
It sounds like that would fall under cloaking, albeit pretty benign as far as cloaking goes. There's some more info here. The Matt Cutts video on that page has a lot of good information. Apparently any cloaking is against Google's guidelines. I would suspect you could get away with it, but I'd be worried everyday about a Google penalty getting handed down.
-
The syntax is correct. Assuming the site: and inurl: operators work in Bing, as they do in Google, then Bing is not indexing URLs with the parameters.
That article you've referred to only tells how to sniff out Google...one of a couple. What it doesn't tell me, unfortunately, is if there are any consequences of doing so and taking some kind of action...like shutting off the event tracking parameters in this case.
Just to be clear...thanks a bunch for helping out!
-
My sense from what you told me is that canonicals should be working in your case. What you're trying to use them for is what they're intended to do. You're sure the syntax is correct, and they're in the of the page or being set in the HTTP header?
Google does set it up so you can sniff out Googlebot and return different content (see here), but that would be unusual to do given the circumstances. I doubt you'd get penalized for cloaking for redirecting parameterized URLs to canonical ones for only Googlebot, but I'd still be nervous about doing it.
Just curious, is Bing respecting the canonicals?
-
Yeah, we can't noindex anything because there literally is NO way to crawl the site without picking up tracking parameters.
So we're saying that there is literally no good/approved way to say "oh look, it's google. let's make sure we don't put any of these params on the URL."? Is that the consensus?
-
If these duplicate pages have URLs that are appearing in search results, then the canonicals aren't working or Google just hasn't tried to reindex those pages yet. If the pages are duplicates, and you've set the canonical correctly, and entered them in Google Webmaster Tools, over time those pages should drop out of the index as Google reindexes them. You could try submitting a few of these URLs with parameters to Google to reindex manually in Google Webmaster Tools, and see if afterward they disappear from the results pages. If they do, then it's just a matter of waiting for Googlebot to find them all.
If that doesn't work, you could try something tricky like adding meta noindex tags to the pages with URL parameters, wait until they fall out of the index, and then add canonical tags back on, and see if those pages come back into the SERPs. If they do, then Google is ignoring your canonical tags. I hate to temporarily noindex any pages like this... but if they're all appearing separately in the SERPs anyhow, then they're not pooling their link juice properly anyway.
-
Thank you for your response. Even if I tell them that the parameters don't alter content, which I have, that doesn't stop how many pages google has to crawl. That's my main concern...that googlebot is spending too much time on these alternate URLs.
Plus there are millions of these param-laden URLs in the index, regardless of the canonical tag. There is currently no way for google to crawl the site without parameters that change constantly throughout each visit. This can't be optimal.
-
You're doing the right thing by adding canonicals to those pages. You can also go into Google Webmaster Tools and let them know that those URL parameters don't change the content of the pages. This really is the bread and butter of canonical tags. This is the problem they're supposed to solve.
I wouldn't sniff out Googlebot just to 301 those URLs with parameters to the canonical versions. The canonicals should be sufficient. If you do want to sniff out Googlebot, Google's directions are here. You don't do it by user agent, you do a reverse DNS lookup. Again, I would not do this in your case.
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
-
Google has discovered a URL but won't index it?
Hey all, have a really strange situation I've never encountered before. I launched a new website about 2 months ago. It took an awfully long time to get index, probably 3 weeks. When it did, only the homepage was indexed. I completed the site, all it's pages, made and submitted a sitemap...all about a month ago. The coverage report shows that Google has discovered the URL's but not indexed them. Weirdly, 3 of the pages ARE indexed, but the rest are not. So I have 42 URL's in the coverage report listed as "Excluded" and 39 say "Discovered- currently not indexed." When I inspect any of these URL's, it says "this page is not in the index, but not because of an error." They are listed as crawled - currently not indexed or discovered - currently not indexed. But 3 of them are, and I updated those pages, and now those changes are reflected in Google's index. I have no idea how those 3 made it in while others didn't, or why the crawler came back and indexed the changes but continues to leave the others out. Has anyone seen this before and know what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster0 -
Changing URL's During a Site Redesign
What are the effects of changing URL's during a site redesign following all of the important processes (ie: 301 redirects, reindexing in google, submitting a new sitemap) ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jennifer-garcia0 -
Why doesn't my website crawl by Google?
Hi mozzers and members, I am having issues, why my website: http://profilecosmeticsurgery.com/ crawl by Google? let me share more clearly when this starts happening. A month or around 45 days back our website is being indexed and crawled quite well without any issues with having .html extension pages with static built website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOOOOOoooooooo
We finally thought to change to .php version and make whole website and its pages to be treated dynamically.
Once we changed all changes, thereafter this issues started. It has been more than 45 days, our website isn't being crawled since then. I didn't know what are the things preventing this to? Please help. Thanks in Advance Capture1.PNG0 -
CMS Pages - Multiple URLS (/)
Hi guys, this type of question has been asked a few times before but I couldn't find something that told me what i need so apologies if its a tad repetitive. I use Magento, and have several pages using its CMS. However, it produces 2 URLS for each page with a simple /. For example, website.com/hire
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP
website.com/hire/ I know google treats this as 2 separate pages, which would be the better solution. 1. Write a URL re-write for every CMS page
RewriteRule ^hire$ http://www.website.com/hire/ [R=301,L] (Is this right?) 2. Write a general rewrite rule to always add the /
No idea where to begin with this 3. Add a Canonical tag to the page which i think is possible in magento by adding this to the Custom Design Layout XML option in the page CMS. <action method="addLinkRel"></action> <rel>canonical</rel> <href>http://www.website.com/hire/</href> This would make the /hire/ page self-reference and the /hire page reference the /hire/ page I think. Which one of these solutions is the best and any pointers with the coding would be grand.0 -
Should /node/ URLs be 301 redirect to Clean URLs
Hi All! We are in the process of migrating to Drupal and I know that I want to block any instance of /node/ URLs with my robots.txt file to prevent search engines from indexing them. My question is, should we set 301 redirects on the /node/ versions of the URLs to redirect to their corresponding "clean" URL, or should the robots.txt blocking and canonical link element be enough? My gut tells me to ask for the 301 redirects, but I just want to hear additional opinions. Thank you! MS
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MargaritaS0 -
We will be switching our shopping cart platform from volusion to magento and really cautious / nervous about our rankings / seo stuff. any advice for anyone that has migrated stores, etc. these urls are years old, etc.
shopping cart platform switch and SEO. What do you suggest? What's the best way to ensure we keep rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan0 -
Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??
Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qdigi0 -
How to determine URL Parameters in Google Webmaster
Hi there! I have a new website with so many duplicate meta titles and descriptions because of its expanded features from the e-commerce shopping cart that I am using like mobile website, product sorting, etc. Aside from canonical, is it advisable to use the URL parameters from Google webmaster tools to disallow crawling of mobile website and other parameters like, "parent", "catalogsetview", "pcsid", "pg" "mode". I appreciate and advise. 🙂 Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | paumer800