How does Google index pagination variables in Ajax snapshots? We're seeing random huge variables.
-
We're using the Google snapshot method to index dynamic Ajax content. Some of this content is from tables using pagination. The pagination is tracked with a var in the hash, something like:
#!home/?view_3_page=1
We're seeing all sorts of calls from Google now with huge numbers for these URL variables that we are not generating with our snapshots. Like this:
#!home/?view_3_page=10099089
These aren't trivial since each snapshot represents a server load, so we'd like these vars to only represent what's returned by the snapshots.
Is Google generating random numbers going fishing for content? If so, is this something we can control or minimize?
-
Thanks for the great replies all. Just to clarify, this is the page we're referencing:
http://www.knackhq.com/business-directory-user-demo/?escaped_fragment=
You can see the one pagination var "next" that points here:
http://www.knackhq.com/business-directory-user-demo/?escaped_fragment=home/?view_3_page=2
As you can see this is pretty simple. There's only one potential variable (the "prev" and "next" links) for introducing these huge numbers and that's pretty limited. We tested the Google URLs up and down the app and haven't seen anything that would send it fishing for larger numbers. But Google keeps hammering us with:
GET /business-directory-user-demo/?escaped_fragment=home/?view_3_page=1000251
For now we're trying to respond to those with 404s and hope they eventually die.
Unfortunately we can't avoid hashbangs.
-
This seems to do this only for parameters that it has decided "changes, re-orders, or narrows content." They may also crawl things that look like URLs in Javascript even when it's part of a function, but it doesn't seem like that's what's happening in this case.
Depending on the setup of the site, you can either manually configure the variable in WMT (don't do this if the parameter is material), write a clever robots.txt rule (e.g. to block anything after a number of digits after the parameter), or (the best solution) re-work the system to generate URLs that don't rely on parameters.
I'm not sure I understand why the server is rendering a page if the URL isn't supposed to exist. Depending on your server config, you may also be able to return a 404 and make a rule for which (valid) pages to render. From there you can just ignore the 404 errors until Google figures it out.
I think that's the best I can do without seeing the site.
-
I agree with Federico. I've seen Google go fishing with URL parameters (?param=xyz) and I've seen it with AJAX and hashbangs as well. How far they take this and when they choose to apply it doesn't seem to follow a consistent pattern . You can see some folks on StackExchange discussing this, too: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/25560/does-the-google-crawler-really-guess-url-patterns-and-index-pages-that-were-neve
-
Awesome, thanks for looking into it. We've gotten nowhere with any kind of answer.
-
Hi There
I'm an associate here at Moz, and have asked the other associates if they might know the answer, as this one's a little outside of my experience. Please follow up and let us know if you don't hear from anyone.
Thanks!
-Dan
-
We also noticed some weird crawls last year using random numbers at the end of the URL, checking in google webmaster tools we saw that most of those urls were reported as not found, checking from where the link came from google listed some of our URLs, but didn't had any link to those URLs google was trying to fetch. After 2 or 3 months those crawls stopped. We never knew from where Google got those URLs...
-
Hi Federico, thanks for the response.
Unfortunately this is an SEO solution for a third-party JavaScript product, so removing the hash isn't an option.
I'm still interested in knowing if this is a formal Google practice and if there's some way to control or mitigate this.
-
I think you are right. Google is fishing for content. I would find a solution to make those URL friendly by removing the hash and using some URL rewrite and pushState to paginate that content instead.
Here's a previous question that may help: http://moz.com/community/q/best-way-to-break-down-paginated-content
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 does not want to index my page
I have a site that is hundreds of page indexed on Google. But there is a page that I put in the footer section that Google seems does not like and are not indexing that page. I've tried submitting it to their index through google webmaster and it will appear on Google index but then after a few days it's gone again. Before that page had canonical meta to another page, but it is removed now.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | odihost0 -
Silly Question still - Because I am paying high to google adwords is it possible google can't rank me high in organic?
Hello All, My ecommerce site gone in penalty more than 3 years before and within 3 months I got message from google penalty removed. Since then till date my organic ranking is very worst. In this 3 years I improved my site onpage very great. If I compare my site with all other competitors who are ranking in top 10 then my onpage that includes all schema, reviews, sitemap, header tags, meta's etc, social media, site structure, most imp speed, google page speed insight score, pingdom, w3c errors, alexa rank, global rank, UI, offers, design, content, code to text raito, engagement rate, page views, time on site etc all my sites always good compare to competitors. They also have few backlinks I do have few backlinks only. I am doing very high google adwords and my conversion rate is very very good. But do you think because I am paying since last 3 year high to google because of that google have some setting or strategy that those who perform well in adwords so not to bring up in organic? Is it possible I can talk with google on this? If yes then what will be the medium of conversation? Pls give some valuable inputs I am performing very much in paid so user end site is very very well. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pragnesh96390 -
HUGELY different ranking for a keyword between Bing and Google. Looking for ideas.
We rank really well for a brand in Bing (#2 behind manufacturer, and it's a competitive name) but are in about 15th place in Google. Any suggestions on what could be hurting us in Google are welcome!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | absoauto1 -
"Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console
Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Best way to permanently remove URLs from the Google index?
We have several subdomains we use for testing applications. Even if we block with robots.txt, these subdomains still appear to get indexed (though they show as blocked by robots.txt. I've claimed these subdomains and requested permanent removal, but it appears that after a certain time period (6 months)? Google will re-index (and mark them as blocked by robots.txt). What is the best way to permanently remove these from the index? We can't use login to block because our clients want to be able to view these applications without needing to login. What is the next best solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Website is not indexed in Google, please help with suggestions
Our client website was removed from Google index. Anybody could recommend how to speed up process of re index: Webmaster tools done SM done (Twitter, FB) sitemap.xml done backlinks in process PPC done Robots.txt is fine Guys any recommendations are welcome, client is very unhappy. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThinkBDW0 -
Google Site Extended Listing Not Indexed
I am trying to get the new Site map to be picked up by Google for the extended listing as its pulling from the old links and returning 404 errors. How can I get the site listing indexed quickly and have the extended listing get updated to point to the right places. This is the site - http://epaperflip.com/Default.aspx This is the search with the extended listing and some 404's - Broad Match search for "epaperflip"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Intergen0