Handling long URLs and overly-dynamic URLs on eCommerce site

[pano]

Hello Forum,

I've been optimizing an eCommerce site and our SEOmoz crawls are favorable for the most part, except for long URLs and overly-dynamic URLs. These issues stem from two URL types: Layered navigation (faceted search) and non-Google internal search results. I outline the issues for each below.

We use an SEO-friendly URL structure for our product category pages, but once bots start "clicking" our layered navigation options, all the parameters are appended to our SEO-friendly urls, causing the SEOmoz crawl warnings.

Layered Navigation :
SEO-Friendly Category Page:  oursite.com/shop/meditation-cushions.html

Effects of layered navigation: oursite.com/shop/meditation-cushions.html?bolster_material_quality=414&bolsters_appearance=206&color=12&dir=asc&height=291&order=name

As you can see the parameters include product attributes and page sorts. I should note that all pages generated by these parameters use the element to point back to the SEO-friendly URL We have also set up Google's Webmaster Tools to handle these parameters.

Internal Search Function:
Our URLs start off simple: oursite.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=brown. Then the bot clicks all the layered navigation options, yielding oursite.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?appearance=54&cat=67&clothing_material=83&color=12&product_color=559&q=brown. Also, all search results are set to noindex,follow.

My question is: Should we worry about these overly-dynamic and long ULR warnings? We have set up canonical elements, "noindex,follow" solutions, and configured Webmaster Tools to handle our parameters. If these are a concern, how would you resolve these issues?

[RockettInteractive]

I see this thread was from last year, so I am hoping between then and now you have determined  an answer and would be able to advise. I am having the same issue with our consumer sight.

[AlanMosley]

If you make them friendly it will shorten them

x=y can become y

But having done that and they are still too long i would ignore them as they are no-index.

[pano]

There another company handling the server side of things. All I know is that we're using PHP and MySQL for Magento.

Even if we did a friendly URL rewrite, wouldn't we still get long URLs? We would just have each parameter become words separated by slashed. i.e .

/shop/meditation-cushions.html/high quaily/patterened/green/10inches/sortedbyname/

I suppose these URLs shorter. Is something like this better?

[pano]

Marc

The crawl warnings are those found in SEOmoz's crawl diagnostics: "Overly-Dynamic URL" and "Long URL." These are not duplicate content issues and the URLs resolve properly.

I just want to make sure we're not getting dinged for having URLs that are too long. If we are, what are some way to go about shortening them?

-Aaron

[THB]

What kind of "crawl warnings" are we talking about here?  Duplicate content?  Do the URL's resolve properly when the additional parameters are appending to the SEO-friendly URL's?

"I should note that all pages generated by these parameters use the element to point back to the SEO-friendly URL We have also set up Google's Webmaster Tools to handle these parameters."

Keep in mind, using canonical tags is like setting up 301 redirects on all those pages.  Some people don't now that, so I thought I'd just throw it out there.  So, if any of those additional pages with the host of parameters contain unique/different content than the seo-friendly versions, using canonical tags is not a good move as they will get no attention from search engines that respect the canonical tag.

For example, do not use a canonical tag on a 'Page 2' to point back to page 1.  Each page will contain different information/products/whatever, and you want search engines (SE) to see and index those pages, regardless of what the URL looks like (as long as it works and your Title/META/H1-H6 tags are all in order to reflect the different content on each page.

I'm not sure I'm following your concern 100% percent, so I hope I was on the right path with what I said.  Can you please be more specific as to what you concern is with the "overly-dynamic and long ULR warnings" please, and I'll be happy to help you out some more.

• Marc

[AlanMosley]

The easy fix is the canonical, yet Bing suggest not using the canonical on the true page, only the duplicates. Best if you can handle that in code, but not a big worry of you cant.

Facet naviagtion is a big problem, with no easy answers.

What sort of server are you using, on a windows server it is very easy to set up friendly urls for your dynamic urls.