URL Parameters to Ignore
-
Hi Mozers,
**We have a glossary of terms made up of a main page that lists out ALL of the terms, and then individual pages per alphabet letter that limit the results to that specific alphabet letter. These pages look like this: **
https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=A
https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=B
https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=C
https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=D
etc.
If I'd like Google to remove all of these "expand=" pages from the index, such that only the main page is indexed, what is the exact parameter that I should ask Google to ignore in Search Console?
"expand=" ?
Just want to make sure! Thanks for the help!!!
-
I agree with what is said above, in addition you could also add the ignore parameter in GSC. As it 's basically adjusting the page content based on that. It's a bit unclear how much information that is really sending to the crawlers but it probably can't hurt.
-
Hi!
What billbill369 said is correct, but will only prevent google from crawling those pages.
My suggestion is to use canonical tags in every URL with a parameter pointing to the correct url (the one without parameters)For further reading:
SEO Best Practices for Canonical URLs + the Rel=Canonical Tag - Whiteboard Friday Consolidate duplicate URLs - Google Search Console HelpHope it helps.
Best luck.
GR. -
Useragent:* Disallow: /*?expand= This should work put it in your robots.txt
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
-
Duplicate Content - Different URLs and Content on each
Seeing a lot of duplicate content instances of seemingly unrelated pages. For instance, http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-bluetooth-speakers.html?from=topnav3 is being tracked as a duplicate of http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-planners-diaries.html?resultsperpg=viewall. Does anyone else see this issue? Is there a solution anyone is aware of?
Technical SEO | | ClaytonKendall0 -
Duplicate blog URLs in Magenton
On one my sites Moz is picking up 4483 duplicate content pages. The majority of these are from our blog and video sections on our site. We're using a URL shortener and it appears that some of the pages are the full version of the URL then the shortened version. However if you go to the full version you get redirected to the shorter one. So I would assume that the Moz crawler should get the same redirect? We're also getting pagination being shown as duplicate pages, which I would half expect, but the URLs Magento is creating are truly bizarre: e.g http://www.xxx.com/uk/blog/cat/view/identifier/news/page/news/index.php/alarms-doorbells/?p=2 Alarms and doorbells is one of our product categories, which is displayed in the LHN on the blog page but has nothing to do with the blog itself. On another site on the same Magento instance, with the same content (they're for two different regions) we're show as having 248 duplicate pages, again in the video and news section, but this is a completely different scale of issue. Has anyone else encountered issues like these? I'm probably going to put a noindex in place on these two sections until we can get a solution in place as we're completely unranked in google on this site. Thanks
Technical SEO | | ahyde0 -
SEO friendly url strategy...
Hi guys i just wanted your expert opinion on keywords in urls. The example i'm giving you is in regards to a ecommerce website: Option 1: www.example.com/shop/coffee/coffee-beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr Option 2: www.example.com/shop/coffee/beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr We sell coffee so i'll keep the example relevant 🙂 Does it make a difference on how the keywords are stacked throughout? Would the search engine combine the two keywords eg. .../coffee/beans/... or would i be better of having .../coffee/coffee-beans/... and is there a penalty for having the same phrase more than once in the url? I hope my question makes sense... 😉 Looking forward to your opinions and ideas!
Technical SEO | | Immanuel0 -
OSE says URL redirects to URL with trailing slash but it doesn't.
Site is www.example.com/folder/us and OSE says this URL redirects to www.example.com/folder/us/, but it does not. When I look at the OSE report for the latter version with the "/" it says "No Data Available For This URL". Why would that be? The original URL is www.example.com and it redirects to www.example.com/folder/us. Is this anything I need to worry about? I thought that the trailing / doesn't really mean much anymore but nonetheless, why does it think it redirects there?
Technical SEO | | rock220 -
Block url with dynamic text in
I've just ran a report and I have a lot of duplicate page titles, most of which seem to be the review page, I use Magento and my normal url would be something like blah-blahtext.html but the review url is something like blah-blahtext/reviews/category/categoryname So I want to block the /reviews url bit as no one ever leaves reviews and it's not something I will be using in the future. Also I have a dynamic navigation which creates urls that look like product-name.html?size=2&colour=14 these are also creating duplicate urls, anyway to fix this? While I'm asking, anyone any tips for Magento?
Technical SEO | | Beermonster0 -
Modifying urls cause broken links?
I want to modify my urls for the purpose of creating clean, informative urls that can be pasted directly for backlink purposes. Instead I have urls with long, garbled, strange characters. When I change the URL it breaks existing back links! Any way around this?
Technical SEO | | natearistotle0 -
Someone is redirecting their url to mine
Hello, I have just discovered that a company in Poland www.realpilot.pl is directing their domain to ours www.transair.co.uk. We have not authorised this, neither do we want this. I have contacted the company and the webmaster to get it removed. If you search for the domain name www.realpilot.pl we (www.transair.co.uk) come up top. My biggest worry is that we will get penalised by Google for this re-direct as it appears to be done using some kind of frame. Does anyone know anything about this kind of thing? Many Thanks Rob Martin
Technical SEO | | brightonseorob0 -
URLs: To Change or Not to Change
Hello, We recently launched a redesigned site in Drupal in December of last year. We are an eco-travel company. My current URL's look like this: /africa-and-middle-east/kenya-tanzania /central-south-america/galapagos-islands My pages have good term targeting grades, and the rankings for the terms we are targeting - "kenya and tanzania safaris" and "galapagos islands cruises" are decent, but not great - most are on page 2 or 3. The one URL where I targeted our most important term, "amazon river cruises," I am still on page 2. /central-south-america/amazon-river-cruises My questions are: Did I miss an opportunity with the rest of the URL's, and should I consider changing the rest to more targeted terms with 301s? Since the new site launched in January, perhaps I have not given enough time for my new URL's to index and mature. Would it be easier to set up landing pages with unique article content that targets terms such as "galapagos islands cruises" and "kenya and tanzania safaris"? If so, how can I do it in such a way as to not "compete" with the pages I want to drive them to? This also raises the question of redirecting the same URL twice i.e. I would have 2 redirects in place for the same url e.g. from the former site to the new site, and yet another redirect to the most-recent URL. Is that a problem? Sorry if I've asked too many questions in one post. 😉 Any advice appreciated.
Technical SEO | | csmithal0