Canonical solution for query strings?
-
Greetings,
The Hotel company where I'm employed uses query strings in it's url's to track customers.
The query strings are integrated into our property management system, and they help identify who we need to pay commissions to, so they aren't going anywhere.
While I understand that session variables could have been a better solution, I sort of inherited this problem.
The issue I'm running into is that my Webmaster tools picks up these query strings as actual url's.
So for instance: www.url.com/index.php?P_SOURCE=WBFQ
Seems like a duplicate page of my root, and like wise for all my other pages that use our booking widget.
So, Is there a canonical solution to this issue? or would 301/302's be the only solution.
Also, we may have 10 different but specific query strings to put into our urls. Would the 301/302 approach cause any server issues for say 10 pages? So 10 pages x 10 access codes = a lot of redirects.
Thanks in advance,
Cyril
-
Short answer Yes.( as long as you have rel Canonical them back to the original page ). Google will drop the other pages over time
Things you can do here :
- Make sure your sitemap is not listing these extra urls
Thing I recommend you DONT do
- noIndex the dynamic pages - adding a noindex could tell google not to index those pages, but some one could link back to that page with P_SOURCE=WBFQ and the main page gets no benefit from that
- ask for manual removal ( because google does not like it when we ask them To get the right "version" of your site indexedhttp://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1269119 )
Hope that answers you questions
-
Sweet! Glad to know I can eliminate an option.
I'll ask you the same thing I asked Thomas, will the query'd urls eventually drop off once google decides which version is best?
Thanks Saijo
-
Hi Nola504
301 redirect is certainly NOT your solution .. if you 301 redirect www.url.com/index.php?P_SOURCE=WBFQ to your homepage , that is the page visitors will be redirected to ( the ?P_SOURCE=WBFQ will be stripped off , I dont think that is what you want )
Rel canonical will tell Google , thay are all the same page with the same content and it will only show the main url that you nominate as the Canonical url ( in most cases , I have read about some study which claims at times google might decide for itself which is the better page )
Moreinfo http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
-
Thanks for the info Thomas,
I only added the canonical tag about a month ago, do you think over time those query links will eventually die off?
-
Adding in the canonical tag for each page should solve this problem. We use query strings as well for tracking sources and referrers. Canonicals are a solid solution for what you described.
But the fact that Google is finding that URL is another problem. If Google continues to find the URL after your canonical insertion then you may want to 301 redirect that particular string.
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
-
Rel=canonical on Godaddy Website builder
Hey crew! First off this is a last resort asking this question here. Godaddy has not been able to help so I need my Moz Fam on this one. So common problem My crawl report is showing I have duplicate home pages www.answer2cancer.org and www.answer2cancer.org/home.html I understand this is a common issue with apache webservers which is why the wonderful rel=canonical tag was created! I don't want to go through the hassle of a 301 redirect of course for such a simple issue. Now here's the issue. Godaddy website builder does not make any sense to me. In wordpress I could just go add the tag to the head in the back end. But no such thing exist in godaddy. You have to do this weird drag and drop html block and drag it somewhere on the site and plug in the code. I think putting before the code instead of just putting it in there. So I did that but when I publish and inspect in chrome I cannot see the tag in the head! This is confusing I know. the guy at godaddy didn't stand a chance lol. Anyway much love for any replies!
Technical SEO | | Answer2cancer0 -
Set Canonical for Paginated Content
Hi Guys, This is a follow up on this thread: http://moz.com/community/q/dynamic-url-parameters-woocommerce-create-404-errors# I would like to know how I can set a canonical link in Wordpress/Woocommerce which points to "View All" on category pages on our webshop.
Technical SEO | | jeeyer
The categories on my website can be viewed as 24/48 or All products but because the quanity constantly changes viewing 24 or 48 products isn't always possible. To point Google in the right direction I want to let them know that "View All" is the best way to go.
I've read that Google's crawler tries to do this automatically but not sure if this is the case on on my website. Here is some more info on the issue: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en
Thanks for the help! Joost0 -
Magento Dublicate Content (Noindex and Rel"canonical")
Hi All, Just looking for some advice regarding my website on magento. We by mistake didnt enable canonical tags and noindex tags so had a big problem with dublicate content from filter pages but also have URLs to Cats as Yes so this didnt help with not having canonical tags enabled. We now have everything enabled for a few weeks now but dont see much drop in indexed pages in google. (currently 27k and we have only 5k products) My question basically is how do we speed up noindexation of dublicate content and also would you change URL to cats as No so google just now sees the url to products? (my concerns with this is would leaving it to Yes help because it will hopefully read the canonical tags on products now) Thank you in advance Michael
Technical SEO | | TogetherCare0 -
Duplicate Title Tags and Meta Desc even with the correct Canonical Tag
I show a large/growing number of duplicate title tags and duplicate meta descriptions in my webmaster tools. I look at both pages Link 1 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink.html Link 2 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink/limit/16.html Both pages have the following canonical url: <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers.html" > Why does this show up as a duplicate title tag and description to Google still?
Technical SEO | | bhalverson0 -
Rel=canonical + no index
We have been doing an a/b test of our hp and although we placed a rel=canonical tag on the testing page it is still being indexed. In fact at one point google even had it showing as a sitelink . We have this problem through out our website. My question is: What is the best practice for duplicate pages? 1. put only a rel= canonical pointing to the "wanted original page" 2. put a rel= canonical (pointing to the wanted original page) and a no index on the duplicate version Has anyone seen any detrimental effect doing # 2? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Morris770 -
Canonical tags
Hi there, I have just noticed that SEOmoz picked up some duplicates links that I would like to resolve but not sure how. For example, the "Finding work in the arts" article has two links: http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Finding+work+in+the+arts&utm_campaign=Footer+Links Both links can be found on this page http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/industry-news-views/article/what-employers-are-looking-for (see attachment). Would automatically generated canonical tags by the CMS solve this issue? rmxiP
Technical SEO | | CreativeChoices0 -
Home Page Canonical Question
I have an online store through hosting service Volusion. I have asked them about this and was told that this is normal. I would like to confirm this with you guys because I'm not convinced of the quality of their customer service and I'm not an expert. When I check Analytics the landing page that is visited most often is www....../default.asp and the second most visited is www........./ . These are, of course, both my home page. Volusion has radio button that allows the admin to "enable canonical links", which I have enabled, and they told me that it is normal to see this on google analytics regardless. When I type in either of those addreses, the homepage comes up as the address that I typed. In other words it doesn't redirect so that it is always the same. Am I right to be concerned about this?
Technical SEO | | berglin0