Canonical Tags & GWT Parameters
-
A site I'm working on has canonical tags which I find to be accurate, regardless of tracking parameters or anything else added to the url. The tag looks like:
And we have alot of parameters in Google Search Console that look like
Parameter Crawl
page Let Googlebot Decide
destination Let Googlebot Decide
filters Let Googlebot Decide
Since all of our parameters follow a question mark, like
http://www.examplesite.com/questions/avocados?source=ad12345
and all of our pages have canonical tags showing the representative url without the additional parameters, why wouldn't we just have the one parameter in GWT as
Parameter Crawl
? Representative URL
I ask because I find that Google analytics shows pages with parameters as landing pages in search, which has me concerned about Google seeing it as duplicate content.
Thanks! Best... Darcy
-
Thanks, Dirk!
-
If Google for some reason chooses another url as the preferred version rather than the canonical I think you can assume that links to the duplicates are counted as links to the preferred version - no hard evidence to confirm this however.
If you check the Best Practices- Be consistent: Try to keep your internal linking consistent. For example, don't link to
http://www.example.com/page/
andhttp://www.example.com/page
andhttp://www.example.com/page/index.htm
.
So if possible - rather link to the canonical than the parameter version.
On duplicate content in general - there is an interesting article on Kissmetrics - https://blog.kissmetrics.com/myths-about-duplicate-content/
Dirk
- Be consistent: Try to keep your internal linking consistent. For example, don't link to
-
Hi Dirk,
One last clarification...
If Google ignores the canonical and chooses to take the url with parameters seriously, do you think this is causing a duplicate content issue or at least loss of link juice problem?
For instance, the navigation has parameters. If Google chooses to see a page with parameters as index-worthy instead of the canonical, is it then two duplicates splitting the link juice flowing to what we hoped was the one true url for the page? That would be no bueno.
Thanks! Best... Darcy
-
The problem with canonical url is that it's just a request to Google to index the canonical rather than the real url - Google however is not obliged to do this (to quote google:
"This (=canonical) indicates the preferred URL to use so that the search results will be more likely to show users that URL structure. (Note: We attempt to respect this, but cannot guarantee this in all cases.)"
Example: if all your internal links go to mysite.com/page¶m=xyz with canonical mysite.com/page Google will probably still rather index the real url mysite.com/page¶m=xyz rather than the canonical version.
If you want to be absolutely sure that the parameter version is not indexed you should redirect the parameter version to the non-parameter version with a 301 which is a (binding) directive that Google has to follow.
You could use the parameter tool in Webmaster tools - but you run a risk that if you do it the wrong way Google will not index these pages at all. In any case - it will not solve your reporting issue in Analytics (as people coming from other sources with parameters will still be measured on the parameter url)
Dirk
-
HI Dirk,
Super helpful insight... thanks!
On the people still visiting the page, if they are landing there out of search, why is Google showing them the url with parameters as opposed to just the representative url? That's the part that has me concerned... landing out of search on a page with parameters.
Best... Darcy
-
If you added the canonicals there is no need to configure parameters in search console.
The issue you have in Analytics is not the same - even if google is respecting the canonicals people are still visiting the pages with the parameters and these are tracked in analytics. You can however tell analytics to ignore the parameters and only measure the traffic on the "main" version of the page. A detailed how to can be found here: http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/03/29/remove-url-parameters-from-google-analytics-reports/
Dirk
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
-
Adding UTM Tags to business directories?
Hi, I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are on adding UTM tags to your business directories such as google my business, yelp, yellow pages ect. Would it be beneficial in sorting the data in GA? That way I can easily see which directories are performing the best. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Sally940 -
We have a client that wants to apply UTM URL tagging to track local organic traffic in Google Analytics. Is there any benefit in doing this?
One of our clients requested that we apply UTM URL tagging to better track organic traffic in Google Analytics. We found this to be an odd request because we are most familiar with UTM tracking for special campaigns (referral tracking, PPC, email tracking, etc). Is there any benefit of applying UTM tags to urls to analyze local organic traffic in Google Analytics? Are there any resources out there about this? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | RosemaryB0 -
Pro's & Con's of Wordpress Categorys & Tags
Good Afternoon! I touched on this question a while back in another post specifically regarding a plethora of duplicate pages that I was finding due to inappropriate tagging in wordpress. As I am going through our website, I am starting to notice it happening again with categories as well. I am including some pictures where you can see the URL structures and titles etc of how everything is laid out. I would like to clarify that I was not the one who did any of this Is it wrong/bad to cross categorize? What I mean by that is put something in more than one category? Would there be any drawback to converting any of these into subcategories? Would that even do anything? Does having two pages that are named the same thing, hurt you? It would seem to me that Google wouldn't like that. I have recently come into the field of thought that Google is getting more and more human, and If it makes a human uncomfortable/confused it will make Google confused. In my pictures you can see we clearly have numerous hard copies of the same thing, not just duplicate elements created by wordpress, that is a separate issue. I personally want to change all of the titles and make everything as different and individual as possible, but i also could be very wrong in my desire to do that. Any thoughts are appreciated! eY4iX2N N3AVqss JZpU7Rq
Reporting & Analytics | | HashtagHustler0 -
Impressions in GWT have dropped to nothing, but my page is still ranking normally
Hello Everyone, I'm seeing a strange issue. On the 22nd of this month Webmasters tools started showing 6 impressions per day down from hundreds or thousands. I thought I was hit with a huge penalty for my keywords but they are still ranking where they have for the past month or two on Google. In analytics my organic traffic is stable. It just seems to be GWT showing the massive drop. My domain is: http://Patchofland.com Any Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | PatchofLand0 -
How does Google sort multiple websites in one GWT account?
Today I noticed one of our sub-domains listed in our Google Webmaster Tools Account moved from the 6th position to the 2nd position. Is there a reason for this (perhaps urls/sites listed at the top require the most attention)?
Reporting & Analytics | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
How to find backlinks from GWT domains
Given the list of GWT domains that link to our site, what is an easy way to find the actual pages on those domains that link to our site? Best,
Reporting & Analytics | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Difference between GWT and GA average position
Does anyone know why there would be a difference in average position from GA and GWT? I am seeing completely different results for the same date ranges. Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | bloomingB0 -
Google Shopping & Keyword Tracking
When tracking Google Shopping using the URL builder is it possible to pull through the Keyword used or will analytic do this automatically?
Reporting & Analytics | | TPSUK1