Does having a ? on the end of your URL affect your SEO?
-
I have some redirects that were done with at "?" at the end of the URL to include google coding (i.e. you click on an adwords link and the google coding follows the redirected link). When there is not coding to follow the link just appears as "filename.html?". Will that affect us negatively SEO-wise?
Thank you.
-
Search engines and informed individuals are used to ?'s as like Takeshi said "query parameters" or "query variables". For everyone else it might look "questionable" (Sorry just had to say it )
-
That is a great answer. Parameters have caused some grief for me thank you!
-
The question mark and the values that follow are known as "query parameters" or "query variables", and they actually can impact your SEO. Google can look at the different variations of the URL, and index them as separate pages, leading to duplicate content.
The easiest fix for this is to put a canonical tag in your header, so that Google knows the what the proper URL for the page is supposed to be. You can also tell Google to ignore specific query parameters in Google Webmaster Tools under Crawl > URL Parameters.
-
Nope
You may find this question from earlier today helpful -
http://moz.com/community/q/weird-back-link-showed-in-moz-crawl
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
-
I am looking for an SEO strategy
I am looking for an SEO strategy, a step by step procedure to follow to rank my website https://infinitelabz.com . Can somebody help?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KHsdhkfn0 -
Many New Urls at once
Hi, I have about 5,000 new URLs to publish. For SEO/Google - Should I publish them gradually, or all at once is fine? *By the way - all these URLs were already indexed in the past, but then redirected. Cheers,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading10 -
Best SEO url woocommerce, what to do?
Hi! Today we have our product categories indexed (by misstake) and for one of our desired keywords, a category have the nr 1 rank. By misstake, we didnt set nofollow, noindex on our categories, just tags, archives etc. We are now migrating to from Ithemes Exchange to Woocommerce and ime looking on improving our SEO urls for the categories. For keyword "Key1" we rank with this url: http://site/product-category/Key1. The seo meta title and description where untouched when we launched the site last spring so it doesnt look so good.. The plan is to stripe out product-category and instead ad some description ( i have a newly written text of 95 words, 519 letters without space with they keyword precent 5 times in a natural way ) to that particular category and have the url as following: http://site/key1 and then have a 301 redirect for the old http://site/product-category/Key1. What do you think of this? What shall i consider? on the right track? Grateful for any help! // Jonas
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knubbz0 -
Search Refinement URLs
My site is using search refinement and I am concerned about the URL adding additional characters when it's refined. My current URL is: http://www.autopartscheaper.com/Air-Conditioning-Heater-Parts-s/10280.htm and when someone chooses their specific year, make, and model then it changes to: http://www.autopartscheaper.com/Air-Conditioning-Heater-Parts-s/10280.htm?searching=Y&Cat=10280&RefineBy_7371=7708. Will this negatively affect SEO for this URL? Will the URL be counted twice? Any help would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Region specific SEO
I am doing SEO for a client in Canada. A few of his keywords are: palliative care
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__
home health care
home care
respite care
senior care He wants to attract vistors only from Calgary specifically, not Canada wide. What should I do to optimize his website only for Calgary region? Should I add the word 'Calgary' to all his keywords?0 -
The format for image SEO
Hi there. After looking at a few SEO videos relating to image SEO it seems important to ensure images are SEO'd just as well as pages. I however have a question. If the page is Meta titles the following: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech And this particular page contains five images which are each variants of this product, how is it best to SEO them? Would you go with the: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Front Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Back Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Side and so on... Or would this result in keyword stuffing with Google's new over-optimisation rules. Would it be better to rename them so they are all individual? I am considering deleting the images, renaming them on the server as the SEO proof name and then re-uploading them so the Image caption = filename. Am I on the right track? If you need the page: http://www.onlineforequine.co.uk/jodhpurs-breeches/22-just-togs-ladies-latina-denim-breech.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlineforequine0 -
Long URL with QueryStrings
Hi, I have a search page that generates some querystrings (with the term, current page, number of pages etc). This long url is something bad for Google indexing? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GDB0 -
SEO question
Hi i changed my page titles for a competitive keyword last week and noticed it has dropped 9 search engine ranking positions. Was ranking 37 and now it 46. Would you guys leave it and see if it starts creeping back up or change again? the page title i used was across my pages for example was Primary keyword | secondary keyword | Heading on page thanks for you help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza19850