Campaign Tracking URLs and the Impact on SEO

[CarlWint]

Hi Guys,

I am setting up tracking for a couple of offline campaigns in Analytics and would just like to know if this will cause issues. The situation is below:

Two URLs Ranking Well Organically:

www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a

www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-b

URLs Setup for the Purpose of Offline Campaigns

www.domain.co.uk/campaign1

www.domain.co.uk/campaign2

Plan to Track this in Analytics

www.domain.co.uk/campaign1 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a_&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test1&utm_campaign=test1_

www.domain.co.uk/campaign2 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test2&utm_campaign=test1__

So the idea is that the user gets a nice simple URL to input from the off-line media (www.domain.co.uk/campaign1). This then redirects to one of the pages thats performing well organically (www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a) but with the relevant tracking (www.domain.co.uk/campaign1 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test1&utm_campaign=test1). The only way that the tracking URL can be accessed by the user is if the off-line media URL is entered.

My main concern here is how Google will treat this. Obviously I don't want to cause issues with the two URLs that are ranking well organically. Would having a version of exactly the same URL, just with tracking do so?

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[OlegKorneitchouk]

No, the tracking links shouldn't affect duplicate content issue. Google understands these variables especially well and won't take them to mean that they are separate pages.

In any case, I recommend adding a canonical tag to the final landing pages (www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a & www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-b) so that any variation of the url gets indexed as the final urls.