Why is rel="canonical" pointing at a URL with parameters bad?
-
Context
Our website has a large number of crawl issues stemming from duplicate page content (source: Moz).
According to an SEO firm which recently audited our website, some amount of these crawl issues are due to URL parameter usage. They have recommended that we "make sure every page has a Rel Canonical tag that points to the non-parameter version of that URL…parameters should never appear in Canonical tags."
Here's an example URL where we have parameters in our canonical tag...
http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/
rel="canonical" href="http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/?pageSize=0&pageSizeBottom=0" />
Our website runs on IBM WebSphere v 7.
Questions
- Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL?
- What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters?
- Any advice for correcting this?
Thanks for any help!
-
Thanks for the response, Eric.
My research suggested the same plan of attack: 1) fixing the canonical tags and 2) Google Search Console URL Parameters. It's helpful to get your confirmation.
My best guess is that the parameters you've cited above are not needed for every URL. I agree that this looks like something WebSphere Commerce probably controls. I'm a few organizational layers removed from whoever set this up for us. I'll try to track down where we can control that.
-
Thanks Peter!
-
Peter has a great answer with some good resources referenced, and i'll try to add on a little bit:
1. Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL?
It's important to use clean URLs so search engines can understand the site structure (like Peter mentioned), which will help reduce the potential for index bloat and ranking issues. The more pages out there containing the same content (ie duplicate content), the harder it will be for search engines to determine which is the best page to show in search results. While there is no "duplicate content penalty" there could be a self inflicted wound by providing too many similar options. The canonical tag is supposed to be a level of control for you to tell Google which page is the most appropriate version. In this case it should be the clean URL since that will be where you want people to start. Users can customize from there using faceted navigation or custom options.
2. What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters?
Basically duplicate content and indexing issues. Both of those things you really want to avoid when running an eComm shop since that will make your pages compete with each other for ranking. That could cost ranking, visits, and revenue if implemented wrong.
3. Any advice for correcting this?
Fix the canonical tags on the site would be your first step. Next you would want to exclude those parameters in the parameter handling section of Google Search Console. That will help by telling Google to ignore URLs with the elements you add in that section. It's another step to getting clean URLs showing up in search results.
I tried getting to http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/mens-costumes/ and realize the parameters are showing up by default like: http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/mens-costumes/#w=*&af=cat2:costumedressup_menscostumes%20cat1:costumedressup%20pagetype:products
Are the parameters needed for every URL? Seems like this is a websphere commerce setup kind of thing.
-
Clean (w/o parameters) canonical URL helps Google to understand better your url structure and avoid several mistakes:
https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html <- mistake N:1
http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/dangerous-rel-canonical-problems/ <- mistake N:4So - your company that giving this advise is CORRECT! You should provide naked URLs everywhere when it's possible.
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
-
URL indexed but not submitted in sitemap, however the URL is in the sitemap
Dear Community, I have the following problem and would be super helpful if you guys would be able to help. Cheers Symptoms : On the search console, Google says that some of our old URLs are indexed but not submitted in sitemap However, those URLs are in the sitemap Also the sitemap as been successfully submitted. No error message Potential explanation : We have an automatic cache clearing process within the company once a day. In the sitemap, we use this as last modification date. Let's imagine url www.example.com/hello was modified last time in 2017. But because the cache is cleared daily, in the sitemap we will have last modified : yesterday, even if the content of the page did not changed since 2017. We have a Z after sitemap time, can it be that the bot does not understands the time format ? We have in the sitemap only http URL. And our HTTPS URLs are not in the sitemap What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZozoMe0 -
URL Parameters, Forms & SEO
Hi I have some pages on the site which have a quote form, in my site crawl I see these showing as duplicate content - my webmaster says this isn't the case, but I'm not sure. Landing page - https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/high-esd-chairs Page with form - https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/high-esd-chairs?quote-form - this also somehow has a canonical on it pointing to https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/high-esd-chairs?quote-form Which neither of us have added. I'm thinking we need to get the canonical needs to be updated to https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/high-esd-chairs Is it worth doing this for all these pages or am I worrying about nothing? Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Nofollow "print" URLs?
Hi there, Apols for the basic question but is it considered good practice to nofollow one of one's own URLs? Basically our 'print page' command produces an identical URL in the same window but with .../?print=1 at the end. As far as I've been reading, the nofollow html attribute is, broadly speaking, only for links to external websites you don't want to vouch for or internal links to login/register pages that together with noindex, you're asking Google not to waste crawl budget on. (The print page is already noindexed so we're good there) Can anyone confirm the above from their own experience? Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daft.ie0 -
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 | | CFSSEO0 -
Should we use URL parameters or plain URL's=
Hi, Me and the development team are having a heated discussion about one of the more important thing in life, i.e. URL structures on our site. Let's say we are creating a AirBNB clone, and we want to be found when people search for apartments new york. As we have both have houses and apartments in all cities in the U.S it would make sense for our url to at least include these, so clone.com/Appartments/New-York but the user are also able to filter on price and size. This isn't really relevant for google, and we all agree on clone.com/Apartments/New-York should be canonical for all apartment/New York searches. But how should the url look like for people having a price for max 300$ and 100 sqft? clone.com/Apartments/New-York?price=30&size=100 or (We are using Node.js so no problem) clone.com/Apartments/New-York/Price/30/Size/100 The developers hate url parameters with a vengeance, and think the last version is the preferable one and most user readable, and says that as long we use canonical on everything to clone.com/Apartments/New-York it won't matter for god old google. I think the url parameters are the way to go for two reasons. One is that google might by themselves figure out that the price parameter doesn't matter (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1235687?hl=en) and also it is possible in webmaster tools to actually tell google that you shouldn't worry about a parameter. We have agreed to disagree on this point, and let the wisdom of Moz decide what we ought to do. What do you all think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peekabo0 -
Is this the "Google Dance"?
We just did a site redesign, and removed the noindex, etc. about 10 days ago. Over the last 24 hours, I've gotten some of my top keywords on the first page, but now they are gone, a few hours later. I assume this is typical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
How to determine URL Parameters in Google Webmaster
Hi there! I have a new website with so many duplicate meta titles and descriptions because of its expanded features from the e-commerce shopping cart that I am using like mobile website, product sorting, etc. Aside from canonical, is it advisable to use the URL parameters from Google webmaster tools to disallow crawling of mobile website and other parameters like, "parent", "catalogsetview", "pcsid", "pg" "mode". I appreciate and advise. 🙂 Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | paumer800 -
Manage Ranking for " Out of Stock" pages
Hi, I own an e-commerce marketplace where the products are sold by 3rd party sellers and purchased by end users. My problem is that whenever a new product is added the search engine crawls the website and it ranks the new page on 4th page. when I start optimizing it to gain better rankings in search engines the product goes out of stock and the rankings drop to below 100. To counter that I started showing other related products on the "Out of Stock" pages but even then the rankings are dropping. Can someone help me with this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0