Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Crazy long weird URLs... help

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Crazy long weird URLs... help

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    10
    4147
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JohnPeters
      JohnPeters last edited by

      I have a HTML website, mysite1.com, and I placed a link on the home page to another one of my sites, mysite2.com

      Today I checked the links to mysite2.com in Majestic and noticed 24 links coming from the mysite1.com instead of just one link.

      The URLs from mysite1.com that are showing in Majestic are like this

      mysite1.com/?epl=4donafvFK3fMXxZXMWQRQLodmPchoXCK5C7-kbBv_agkwlkJrZAoaSDVUlhqFmUqt0f8c2Q6jF6GO6DNMnbidqRsikriF-IEBEt5okmICLEB0FxP36GrsxoPGQ3SGBo1PVR7itDUA4CYmjypn5gi

      mysite1.com,was inherited from a friend and I believe that it was originally built in Frontpage.

      Can you tell me how I can get rid of these multiple links as I only want 1 showing from the home page

      Thanks in advance

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Andy.Drinkwater
        Andy.Drinkwater @JohnPeters last edited by

        I would need to see this to give you any real feedback on it John but general rule of thumb is if Google looked at these links, would they see and understand the reasoning for the links to be there?

        Andy

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JohnPeters
          JohnPeters @JohnPeters last edited by

          I see what you mean. Well the links from the home page sites are going from sites that are for information purposes only, then link to the service provider recommended by that website.

          I wouldn't see anything wrong with this. There are 5 sites linking from the home page to my main site out of 120 backlinks. I presume that this doesnt look bad in Google's eyes

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Andy.Drinkwater
            Andy.Drinkwater @JohnPeters last edited by

            I can't really help you with the htaccess stuff John, but regarding links from the homepage to another external site, this has always been a questionable practice. Why would you want to direct someone to another site as soon as they got to your homepage? Google see this in a similar way.

            However, if there is a very good reason for the link to appear there and if it formed part of a good sentence with accurate anchor text and wasn't trying to push people there just to get traffic up, then I can see no harm - bit hard to judge without seeing though.

            Andy

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • JohnPeters
              JohnPeters @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

              Hi Andy,

              Thanks for helping out.

              Can you tell me why you think home page links are bad? I actually started a question about this last week but didnt get many replys. Do you think getting home page links a bad thing to do?

              Ive done some digging and found that when I go to mysite1.com in majestic and look at Pages, its showing all the long URLs that I found pointing to mysite2.com

              So I guess that at some point in its life, these pages have been indexed by Google.

              These URLs all start with a ? i.e. mysite1.com/?561796

              So I am guessing the best way to solve this is to make all URLs that start with a /? be redirected to the root.

              Unfortunetly I have no idea how to write this in the htaccess file

              Andy.Drinkwater JohnPeters 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Andy.Drinkwater
                Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                First of all, be careful with off-site links from your homepage unless there is a very good reason for it. If there isn't, I would always no-follow it so Google doesn't see an unethical link.

                With reagards what you are seeing in Majestic, when you hover over the link, what do you see? Is it just a normal HTML link or has it been completed another way?

                Andy

                JohnPeters 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JohnPeters
                  JohnPeters last edited by

                  Ok I have noticed that any URL with ? at the end shows the home page.

                  mysite1.com/? will show the home page

                  mysite1.com/?111 will show the home page

                  etc etc

                  So I guess I need to redirect anything with a ? to the home page using a 301.

                  Can someone tell me what the code will be to do that in the htaccess file?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DeanAndrews
                    DeanAndrews @JohnPeters last edited by

                    Hi John

                    PM me if you like, I'll have a look for you. Promise not to repeat the domain name.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • JohnPeters
                      JohnPeters @DeanAndrews last edited by

                      Hi,

                      Unfortunately I cant do that on a public forum.

                      But I can tell you all the URLs look like the one Ive posted, loads of numbers etc.

                      It isnt a dynamic site so these actual URLs are not  live pages.

                      When you visit these URLs, they are just duplicates of the home page

                      Hope that helps a little

                      DeanAndrews 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DeanAndrews
                        DeanAndrews last edited by

                        Hi John

                        Could you provide the address so we can look please. Would be making wild guesses else.

                        JohnPeters 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • 1 / 1
                        • First post
                          Last post

                        Got a burning SEO question?

                        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                        Start my free trial


                        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.

                        • See all categories

                        Related Questions

                        • nkennett

                          Need some help understanding SEO - Please help before I lose [pull out] all my hair

                          technical seo getting beaten sites with no seo ranking 1

                          I'm new to SEO, and am stubbornly trying to educate myself. I have a telescope shop in Canada, it's a small business that we run on the side. We're driving lots of traffic through FB and our outreach programs but I really want to increase our presence on search. We released a new website back in January and it killed some of our rankings. We're working our way back with a very specific set of efforts on regular SEO: Metadata and titles, although it seems that's not super relevant Building high quality backlinks and eliminating any spammy backlinks Rewriting product listings so that they are original content though I'm not sure how important this is in e-commerce Writing high quality articles and blog posts Working relevant keywords into our product pages and titles I understand that good SEO is about pushing on all the levers, and trying to make sure that your site is as valuable to the end user as possible. We're making some good progress, but I'm puzzled by the #1 shop in Canada. They don't put any apparent effort into SEO and they still rank #1 on every key product we compete with them on. I've worked with two separate, highly ranked and regarded SEO firms on this and neither has been able to tell my why this other site ranks so highly. Here's a specific example on a popular product that we both sell, the Celestron NexStar 8SE. Here’s the link to Telescope Canada’s page for their Celestron 8SE: https://telescopescanada.ca/products/celestron-nexstar-8se-computerized-telescope-11069 Here’s a link to the Celestron 8SE page from the manufacturer website: https://www.celestron.com/products/nexstar-8se-computerized-telescope Telescopes Canada has just copied and pasted. There is no original content aside from adding the shipping and return policy to the tab, and having some options for selecting accessories on the page. Here is our page: https://all-startelescope.com/products/celestron-nexstar-8se We have higher page authority, higher domain authority, and they keyword analyzer in moz says that our page is higher quality than the Telescopes Canada page. I can’t find a single metric on any tool (ubbersuggest, Moz, ahrefs, semrush) that says Telescopes Canada is a better site, or has a better NexStar 8SE product page. But they keep ranking ahead of us, and right at the top of google search. Our titles are good, our metadata is good (but I don’t think that’s been a serious ranking factor for about ten years). Our text is original, it’s relevant, we have healthy internal links to the page. According to Moz's page ranker it's 20 points higher than Telescope Canada's page. We have invensted in some excellent blog content, we’re adding new products to the website so that we rank for more keywords. All of those things are helping, but I fundamentally don’t understand why Telescopes Canada is #1 almost across the board on every key product in our market. There is something that I’m not seeing here. Can you see any metric, any tool in your toolbox that indicates why they rank at the top, or even higher than we do for in these search terms specific to that product: Celestron NexStar 8SE
                          NexStar 8SE
                          Celestron NexStar 8SE Canada
                          NexStar 8SE Canada I have a feeling it's something technical that I'm missing, but I'm not sure how obvious it is with two 'professional' firms not finding it. I'd really appreciate any help or insight that you can offer.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nkennett
                          0
                        • seopack.org.ofici3

                          I need help in doing Local SEO

                          Hey guys I hope everyone is doing well. I am new to SEO world and I want to do local SEO for one of my clients. The issue is I do not know how to do Local SEO at all or where to even start. I would appreciate it if anyone could help me or give me an article or a course to learn how to do it. Main question The thing that I want to do is that, I want my website to show up in top 3 google map results for different locations(which there is one actual location). For example I want to show up for
                          online clothing store in new york
                          online clothing store in los angeles or... Let's assume that we can ship our product to every other cities. So I hope I could deliver what I mean. I'd appreciate it if you could answer me with practical solutions.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seopack.org.ofici3
                          0
                        • CarolynSC

                          Does google ignore ? in url?

                          Hi Guys, Have a site which ends ?v=6cc98ba2045f for all its URLs. Example: https://domain.com/products/cashmere/robes/?v=6cc98ba2045f Just wondering does Google ignore what is after the ?. Also any ideas what that is? Cheers.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarolynSC
                          0
                        • jayoliverwright

                          Duplicate URLs ending with #!

                          Hi guys, Does anyone know why a site can contain duplicate URLs ending with hastag & exclamation mark e.g. https://site.com.au/#! We are finding a lot of these URLs (as duplicates) and i was wondering what they are from developer standpoint? And do you think it's worth the time and effort adding a rel canonical tag or 301 to these URLs eventhough they're not getting indexed by Google? Cheers, Chris

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
                          0
                        • CFSSEO

                          Double hyphen in URL - bad?

                          Instead of a URL such as domain.com/double-dash/  programming wants to use domain.com/double--dash/ for some reason that makes things easier for them. Would a double dash in the URL have a negative effect on the page ranking?

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFSSEO
                          0
                        • tomcraig86

                          Canonical URL & sitemap URL mismatch

                          Hi We're running a Magento store which doesn't have too much stock rotation. We've implemented a plugin that will allow us to give products custom canonical URLs (basically including the category slug, which is not possible through vanilla Magento). The sitemap feature doesn't pick up on these URLs, so we're submitting URLs to Google that are available and will serve content, but actually point to a longer URL via a canonical meta tag. The content is available at each URL and is near identical (all apart from the breadcrumbs) All instances of the page point to the same canonical URL We are using the longer URL in our internal architecture/link building to show this preference My questions are; Will this harm our visibility? Aside from editing the sitemap, are there any other signals we could give Google? Thanks

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomcraig86
                          0
                        • seoppc2012

                          Does Google index url with hashtags?

                          We are setting up some Jquery tabs in a page that will produce the same url with hashtags. For example: index.php#aboutus, index.php#ourguarantee, etc. We don't want that content to be crawled as we'd like to prevent duplicate content. Does Google normally crawl such urls or does it just ignore them? Thanks in advance.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoppc2012
                          0
                        • CommercePundit

                          How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?

                          Today, I was reading help article for URL parameters by Google. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1235687 I come to know that, Google is giving value to URLs which ave parameters that change or determine the content of a page. There are too many pages in my website with similar value for Name, Price and Number of product. But, I have restricted all pages by Robots.txt with following syntax. URLs:
                          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name
                          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=price
                          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100 Syntax in Robots.txt
                          Disallow: /?dir=
                          Disallow: /?p=
                          Disallow: /*?limit= Now, I am confuse. Which is best solution to get maximum benefits in SEO?

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
                          0

                        Get started with Moz Pro!

                        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                        Start my free trial
                        Products
                        • Moz Pro
                        • Moz Local
                        • Moz API
                        • Moz Data
                        • STAT
                        • Product Updates
                        Moz Solutions
                        • SMB Solutions
                        • Agency Solutions
                        • Enterprise Solutions
                        Free SEO Tools
                        • Domain Authority Checker
                        • Link Explorer
                        • Keyword Explorer
                        • Competitive Research
                        • Brand Authority Checker
                        • Local Citation Checker
                        • MozBar Extension
                        • MozCast
                        Resources
                        • Blog
                        • SEO Learning Center
                        • Help Hub
                        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                        • How-to Guides
                        • Moz Academy
                        • API Docs
                        About Moz
                        • About
                        • Team
                        • Careers
                        • Contact
                        Why Moz
                        • Case Studies
                        • Testimonials
                        Get Involved
                        • Become an Affiliate
                        • MozCon
                        • Webinars
                        • Practical Marketer Series
                        • MozPod
                        Connect with us

                        Contact the Help team

                        Join our newsletter
                        Moz logo
                        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                        • Accessibility
                        • Terms of Use
                        • Privacy

                        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.