Will using query string in the URL and swapping H1s for filtered view of the blog impact SEO negatively?
-
This is a blog revamp we are trying to personalize the experience for 2 separate audiences.We are revamping our blog the user starts on the blog that shows all stories (first screen) then can filter to a more specific blog (ESG or News blog). The filtered version for ESG or the News blog is done through a query string in the URL. We also swap out the page’s H1s accordingly in this process, will this impact SEO negatively?
-
Hi Lina,
This definitely could impact SEO. The key here is: what pages do you want to be in Google's index?
If you just want one blog homepage, the best strategy is canonicals, like Cesare said, plus telling Google that it should ignore the parameters that you use for the ESG and News blog. If you want the standard homepage, ESG, and News blog all to be in Google's index, you'll want to canonical the homepage to it's URL with no parameters, then update the canonicals for the ESG and News blog once the filters are applied, so the canonicals include the parameters that make the ESG and News sections unique.
You can update which parameters Google pays attention to or ignores in Google Search Console, which we explained how to do in another Moz post here: https://moz.com/community/q/how-can-i-remove-parameters-from-the-gsc-url-blocking-tool
Good luck!
Kristina
-
The 2 versions would probably be seen as duplicate content.
I guess you should use canonical tags on the page. This will tell Google what the preferred version of the page is and so Google and avoid duplicate content at the same time.
This guide might help you too. https://www.woorank.com/en/blog/guide-to-clean-urls-for-seo-and-usability
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Cesare
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
-
SEO advice on ecommerce url structure where categories contain "/c/"
Hi! We use Hybris as plattform and I would like input on which url to choose. We must keep "/c/" before the actual category. c stands for category. I.e. this current url format will be shortened and cleaned:
Technical SEO | | hampgunn
https://www.granngarden.se/Sortiment/Husdjur/Hund/Hundfoder-%26-Hundmat/c/hundfoder To either: a.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/hundfoder/c/hundfoder b.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/c/hundfoder (hundfoder means dogfood) The question is whether we should keep the duplicated category name (hundfoder) before the "/c/" or not. Will there be SEO disadvantages by removing the duplicate "hundfoder" before the "/c/"? I prefer the shorter version ofc, but do not want to jeopardize any SEO rankings or send confusing signals to search engines or customers due to the "/c/" breaking up the url breadcrumb. What do you guys say and prefer from the above alternatives? Thanks /Hampus0 -
Negative SEO attack, just keep disavowing?
Hello, Around 2 months ago someone started a negative SEO campaign against us. Each week in Majestic around 50-60 domains appear (all .biz or .eu) which link to our site in hidden code via the exact match keyword. Now luckly nothing has happened to our rankings, as i have been disavowing all those links as soon as they appear in Majestic. (google only shows a few of them, and Google webmaster forum told me that google only shows a "sample of links" and that we should disavow as soon as we see) So only thing for me is to monitor majestic each week and keep on disavowing. I think there are almost 250 domains to this date i have disavowed. Or should i still only disavow those that google shows? (I think not, as those are "sample links")
Technical SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Change URL or use Canonicals and Redirects?
We just completed a conclusive a/b test on a client's landing page. The new page saw a 30% bump in conversions, yay! Now what? Option 1: Change the url of the new page to that of the old page, retire the old page. Option 2: Redirect the old page and anything that was pointing to it to the new page, make the new page the canonical. I'm afraid of option 1 because I think Google's WTF penalty will be a bit harsher than option 2, but I wanted to sanity check that here. Any thoughts or experienced advice would be very appreciated!
Technical SEO | | LindsayDayton0 -
Panda Cleanup - Removing Old Blog Posts, Let Them 404 or 301 to Main Blog Page?
tl;dr... Removing old blog posts that may be affected by Panda, should we let them 404 or 301 to the Blog? We have been managing a corporate blog since 2011. The content is OK but we've recently hired a new blogger who is doing an outstanding job, creating content that is very useful to site visitors and is just on a higher level than what we've had previously. The old posts mostly have no comments and don't get much user engagement. I know Google recommends creating great new content rather than removing old content due to Panda concerns but I'm confident we're doing the former and I still want to purge the old stuff that's not doing anyone any good. So let's just pretend we're being dinged by Panda for having a large amount of content that doesn't get much user engagement (not sure if that's actually the case, rankings remain good though we have been passed on a couple key rankings recently). I've gone through Analytics and noted any blog posts that have generated at least 1 lead or had at least 20 unique visits all time. I think that's a pretty low barrier and everything else really can be safely removed. So for the remaining posts (I'm guessing there are hundreds of them but haven't compiled the specific list yet), should we just let them 404 or do we 301 redirect them to the main blog page? The underlying question is, if our primary purpose is cleaning things up for Panda specifically, does placing a 301 make sense or would Google see those "low quality" pages being redirected to a new place and pass on some of that "low quality" signal to the new page? Is it better for that content just to go away completely (404)?
Technical SEO | | eBoost-Consulting0 -
Should I use canonical?
I'm working on a site that sells audio tracks, the site is a Wordpress build. I've got Yoast and XML Sitemaps running for SEO. The site has been developed (not by myself) to use a flash based audio player. Now this player offers the ability to share, sell products etc... The player has been placed on the homepage and the main music catalog page. The main catalog page has had a custom page type created for itself. This page has been created in such a way that if you visit the actual page from dashboard > Pages and add content then no content will appear on the page. Even the page header is pulled from the PHP. So really as far as I am aware no real content is being seen on the page by a search engine. Except the content on the side bars (it has 2 sidebars on either side of the page.) The homepage has an introductory paragraph and header which are editable via the normal method in Wordpress. A custom post type has been created specifically for music items. When a music item is uploaded it is added to the music item feed on the homepage and music catalog pages. It also creates a separate post for the item itself. These items at the moment also have 'no content' as they are only sidebars with a flash music player. I've started to add short paragraphs and headers to them so there is content on the music item posts. I cannot however, in the time frame/budget start entering deeply descriptive content about each item. (I considered adding the intro paragraph from the homepage and using a canonical tag to the homepage on every music item). So here is my question. What do I do with these music items? Do I use canonical and point them toward the music catalog or the homepage? If so which one? I want the homepage or music catalog page to rank well and I am concerned that search engines aren't going to see these most vital parts of the site. I don't think individual items ranking is helpful, so what do i do?!?! The home and catalog pages are the two main pages of the site. I am going to advise a new player, page type etc... be utilised but at the moment I need a solution quickly. Any help will be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | benyamin0 -
Hyphen in URL
Hi, I would like to know if the following statement holds true today or it doesn't matter whether we use hyphens or underscore If you have a URL like keyword1_keyword2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for keyword1_keyword2 ( highly unlikely ) . But If you have a URL like keyword1-keyword2, that page can be returned for the searches - keyword1,keyword2 and even “keyword1keyword2” Thanks
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Mobile Domain \ URL Structure SEO questions
Hi We are making a mobile site for our site for one of our partner sites and I would like to know which one of the following URL structure you recommand as far as SEO concerned? mobile.mywebsite.com or mywebsite.mobi Also, should I worry about duplicated content on my mobile site?
Technical SEO | | CookingCom0 -
What are the SEO implications of using Interstitials?
Hi, I want to implement an interstitial similar to http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/defaultinterstitial.cms. Within few seconds it gets redirected to http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/. What are the SEO implications of having this sort of arrangement? Regards
Technical SEO | | IM_Learner0