Product search URLs with parameters and pagination issues - how should I deal with them?
-
Hello Mozzers - I am looking at a site that deals with URLs that generate parameters (sadly unavoidable in the case of this website, with the resource they have available - none for redevelopment) - they deal with the URLs that include parameters with *robots.txt - e.g. Disallow: /red-wines/? **
Beyond that, they userel=canonical on every PAGINATED parameter page[such as https://wine****.com/red-wines/?region=rhone&minprice=10&pIndex=2] in search results.**
I have never used this method on paginated "product results" pages - Surely this is the incorrect use of canonical because these parameter pages are not simply duplicates of the main /red-wines/ page? - perhaps they are using it in case the robots.txt directive isn't followed, as sometimes it isn't - to guard against the indexing of some of the parameter pages???
I note that Rand Fishkin has commented: "“a rel=canonical directive on paginated results pointing back to the top page in an attempt to flow link juice to that URL, because “you'll either misdirect the engines into thinking you have only a single page of results or convince them that your directives aren't worth following (as they find clearly unique content on those pages).” **- yet I see this time again on ecommerce sites, on paginated result - any idea why? **
Now the way I'd deal with this is:
Meta robots tags on the parameter pages I don't want indexing (nofollow, noindex - this is not duplicate content so I would nofollow but perhaps I should follow?)
Use rel="next" and rel="prev" links on paginated pages - that should be enough.Look forward to feedback and thanks in advance, Luke
-
Hi Zack,
Have you configured your parameters in Search Console? Looks like you've got your prev/next tags nailed down, so there's not much else you need to do. It's evident to search engines that these types of dupes are not spammy in nature, so you're not running a risk of getting dinged.
-
Hi Logan,
I've seen your responses on several threads now on pagination and they are spot on so I wanted to ask you my question. We're an eCommerce site and we're using the rel=next and rel=prev tags to avoid duplicate content issues. We've gotten rid of a lot of duplicate issues in the past this way but we recently changed our site. We now have the option to view 60 or 180 items at a time on a landing page which is causing more duplicate content issues.
For example, when page 2 of the 180 item view is similar to page 4 of the 60 item view. (URL examples below) Each view version has their own rel=next and prev tags. Wondering what we can do to get rid of this issue besides just getting rid of the 180 and 60 item view option.
https://www.example.com/gifts/for-the-couple?view=all&n=180&p=2
https://www.example.com/gifts/for-the-couple?view=all&n=60&p=4
Thoughts, ideas or suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
-
I've been having endless conversations about this over the last few days and in conclusion I agree with everything you say - thanks for your excellent advice. On this particular site next/prev was not set up correctly, so I'm working on that right now.
-
Yes I agree totally - some wise words of caution - thanks.
-
thanks for the feedback - it is Umbraco.
-
To touch on your question about if you should follow or nofollow links...if the pages in question could help with crawling in any fashion at all...despite being useless for their own sake, if they can be purposeful for the sake of other pages in terms of crawling and internal pagerank distribution, then I would "follow" them. Only if they are utterly useless for other pages too and are excessively found throughout a crawling of the site would I "nofollow" them. Ideally, these URLs wouldn't be found at all as they are diluting internal pagerank.
-
Luke,
Here's what I'd recommend doing:
- Lose the canonical tags, that's not the appropriate way to handle pagination
- Remove the disallow in the robots.txt file
- Add rel next/prev tags if you can; since parameter'd URLs are not separate pages, some CMSs are weird about adding tags to only certain versions of parameter
- Configure those parameters in Search Console ('the last item under the Crawl menu) - you can specific each parameter on the site and its purpose. You might find that some of these have already been established by Google, you can go in and edit those ones. You should configure your filtering parameters as well.
- You don't want to noindex these pages, for the same reason that you might not be able to add rel next/prev. You could risk that noindex tag applying to the root version of the URL instead of just the parameter version.
Google has gotten really good at identifying types of duplicate content due to things like paginated parameters, so they don't generally ding you for this kind of dupe.
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
-
How do I know if I am correctly solving an uppercase url issue that may be affecting Googlebot?
We have a large e-commerce site (10k+ SKUs). https://www.flagandbanner.com. As I have begun analyzing how to improve it I have discovered that we have thousands of urls that have uppercase characters. For instance: https://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/patriotic-paper-lanterns-string-lights.asp. This is inconsistently applied throughout the site. I directed our website vendor to fix the issue and they placed 301 redirects via a rule to the web.config file. Any url that contains an uppercase character now displays as a lowercase. However, as I use screaming frog to monitor our site, I see all these 301 redirects--thousands of them. The XML sitemap still shows the the uppercase versions. We have had indexing issues as well. So I'm wondering what is the most effective way to make sure that I'm not placing an extra burden on Googlebot when they index our site? Should I have just not cared about the uppercase issue and let it alone?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webrocket0 -
Will Canonical tag on parameter URLs remove those URL's from Index, and preserve link juice?
My website has 43,000 pages indexed by Google. Almost all of these pages are URLs that have parameters in them, creating duplicate content. I have external links pointing to those URLs that have parameters in them. If I add the canonical tag to these parameter URLs, will that remove those pages from the Google index, or do I need to do something more to remove those pages from the index? Ex: www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/?TID=shkfsvdi_dc%ficol (has link pointing here)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf
www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/ (canonical URL) Thanks for your help. Rob0 -
URL Parameter Handling In GWT to Treat Overindexation - how aggressive?
Hi, My client recently launched a new site and their index went from about 20K up to about 80K - which is a severe over indexation. I believe this was caused by parameter handling as some category pages now have 700 pages in the results for "site:domain.com/category1" - and apart from the top result, they are all parameters being indexed. My question is how active/aggressive should I be in blocking these parameters in Google Webmaster Tools? Currently, everything is set to 'let googlebot decide'.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LukeyJamo0 -
Shopify Product Variants vs Separate Product Pages
Let's say I have 10 different models of hats, and each hat has 5 colors. I have two routes I could take: a) Make 50 separate product pages Pros: -Better usability for customer because they can shop for just masks of a specific color. We can sort our collections to only show our red hats. -Help SEO with specific kw title pages (red boston bruins hat vs boston bruins hat). Cons: -Duplicate Content: Hat model in one color will have almost identical description as the same hat in a different color (from a usability and consistency standpoint, we'd want to leave descriptions the same for identical products, switching out only the color) b) Have 10 products listed, each with 5 color variants Pros: -More elegant and organized -NO duplicate Content Cons: -Losing out on color specific search terms -Customer might look at our 'red hats' collection, but shopify will only show the 'default' image of the hat, which could be another color. That's not ideal for usability/conversions. Not sure which route to take. I'm sure other vendors must have faced this issue before. What are your thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | birchlore0 -
SEO Overly-Dynamic URL Website with thousands of URLs
Hello, I have a new client who has a Diablo 3 database. They have created a very interesting site in which every "build" is it's own URL. Every page is a list of weapons and gear for the gamer. The reader may love this but it's nightmare for SEO. I have pushed for a blog to help generate inbound links and traffic but overall I feel the main feature of their site is a headache to optimize. They have thousands of pages index in google but none are really their own page. There is no strong content, H-Tags, or any real substance at all. With a lack of definition for each page, Google see's this as a huge ball of mess, with duplicate Page Titles and too many onpage links. The first thing I did was tell them to add a canonical link which seemed to drop the errors down 12K leaving only 2400 left...which is a nice start, but the remaining errors is still a challenge. I'm thinking about seeing if I can either find a way to make each page it's own blurb, H Tag or simple have the Nav bar and all the links in the database Noindex. That way the site is left with only a handful of URLs + the Blog and Forum Thought?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikePatch0 -
Branded Searches -- Should I Name My Products Differently?
I know that branded searches are a large component of whether sites were hit by Panda or not, and I wonder if moving forward, I should always include the name of my site (domain) in the name of the product. For example, if I have a product with a unique name such as 'history maps' should I change the name to include my brand name, i.e '[domain] history maps'? Or, if users search for the unique product name, is that sufficient?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1 -
Changing Site URLs
I am working on a new client that hasn't implemented any SEO previously. The site has terrible url nomenclature and I am wondering if it is worth it to try and change it. Will I lose rankings? What is the best url naming structure? Here's the website http://www.formica.com/en/home/TradeLanding.aspx. (I am only working on the North America site.) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
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:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
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?0