How can I best handle parameters?
-
Thank you for your help in advance! I've read a ton of posts on this forum on this subject and while they've been super helpful I still don't feel entirely confident in what the right approach I should take it. Forgive my very obvious noob questions - I'm still learning!
The problem: I am launching a site (coursereport.com) which will feature a directory of schools. The directory can be filtered by a handful of fields listed below. The URL for the schools directory will be coursereport.com/schools. The directory can be filtered by a number of fields listed here:
- Focus (ex: “Data Science”)
- Cost (ex: “$<5000”)
- City (ex: “Chicago”)
- State/Province (ex: “Illinois”)
- Country (ex: “Canada”)
When a filter is applied to the directories page the CMS produces a new page with URLs like these:
- coursereport.com/schools?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago
- coursereport.com/schools?cost=$>5000&city=buffalo&state=newyork
My questions:
1) Is the above parameter-based approach appropriate? I’ve seen other directory sites that take a different approach (below) that would transform my examples into more “normal” urls.
coursereport.com/schools?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago
VERSUS
coursereport.com/schools/focus/datascience/cost/$<5000/city/chicago (no params at all)
2) Assuming I use either approach above isn't it likely that I will have duplicative content issues? Each filter does change on page content but there could be instance where 2 different URLs with different filters applied could produce identical content (ex: focus=datascience&city=chicago OR focus=datascience&state=illinois). Do I need to specify a canonical URL to solve for that case? I understand at a high level how rel=canonical works, but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what versions of the filtered results ought to be specified as the preferred versions. For example, would I just take all of the /schools?focus=X combinations and call that the canonical version within any filtered page that contained other additional parameters like cost or city?
-
Should I be changing page titles for the unique filtered URLs?
-
I read through a few google resources to try to better understand the how to best configure url params via webmaster tools. Is my best bet just to follow the advice on the article below and define the rules for each parameter there and not worry about using rel=canonical ?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1235687
An assortment of the other stuff I’ve read for reference:
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/seo-clean-urls
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3857-SEO-When-Product-Facets-and-Filters-Fail
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/five-steps-to-seo-friendly-site-url-structure/59813/
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/07/improved-handling-of-urls-with.html
-
I think you have your answer then on how you want to focus your URLs and your site!
-
Absolutely helpful. I really appreciate it. I think one real use case that I may want to solve for is the "focus" plus "city" combo. Ie: "data science schools in chicago". Based on the research I've done thus far I think that may be the only permutation really worth worrying about. Again - thanks a lot!
-
I am not going to be very helpful here.
Looking at those parameters and all the options you would have for URLs, yes you are ripe for duplicate content issue and a whole mess of search engine problems/confusion.
I read this the other day in the QNA forum here at Moz and I wish I could remember to give them credit for the quote, they said "Don't submit search results to the search engines" - so true - so true ....
Why? You end up with an almost infinite number of thin, duplicate pages that Google then does not know which ones to rank. Even if you put all the parameters into a static URL you still have the same problem.
I think you need to step back a sec
Are people searching for "data science schools in Chicago Illinois that cost less than $5000"?
Why would you even want to attempt to setup pages that could potentially rank for those terms based on the URL?
Launch the search function on the site, but hide all the search URLs behind robots.txt
Just setup things like
/search/?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago
/search/focus/datascience/cost/$<5000/city/chicago
put /search/ in robots and you are set
Another option (from one of my favorite WBF http://moz.com/blog/whiteboard-friday-using-the-hash)
Hide all the parameters behind the hash and they stay hidden from the search engines
/schools#?focus=datascience&cost=$<5000&city=chicago
Then go back, do your keyword research and build helpful static URL pages around what your users are searching for and then get those pages to rank. If that ultimately is the type of page above, I would bet you $3,141 plus an apple pie that you need to setup a simpler organization of pages and urls around location say /il/chicago/school-name or type /data-science/school-name and then all the other iterations, you would hide behind a hash etc.
Maybe this did help - I hope so.
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
-
Best way to handle Breadcrumbs for Blog Posts in multiple categories?
The site in question uses Wordpress. They have a Resources section that is broken into two categories (A or B). Underneath each of these categories is 5 or 6 subcategories. The structure looks like this: /p/main-category-a/subcategory/blog-post-name /p/main-category-b/subcategory/blog-post-name All posts have a main category, but other posts often have multiple subcategories while some posts also fall into both main categories. What would be the easiest or most effective way to auto-populate the breadcrumb based on from where the person reached the blog post? So for example, a way to set Home -> Main Category -> Subcategory 1 as the breadcrumb if they reach it from the Subcategory 1 landing page. Or is this not possible and we should just set the breadcrumb manually based on where we feel it best lives? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Alces0 -
What is the best format for animated content
We want to use some movement in our designs, charts etc. what format is the most SEO friendly?
Technical SEO | | remkoallertz1 -
How can I stop google indexing an image
I have put a map of cornwall on my site on the Corwnall Page, and for some reason Google.de has picked it up and shows it up in the top 4 images for a search for cornwall? The result is I am getting about 80% of the traffic coming to my site for the search Cornwall (I get about 50 unique visits per day, over 40 a day are landing on the Cornwall page. Is this a problem for my normal SEO as a Close up Magician? Will google start to think my site is about Cornwall? Should I noindex the image (I say that like I know how! - How do I noindex that image? ) Or is any traffic to a site good traffic, I imagine they will be clicking on the link landing on the page and then leaving, which I suspect is not good for google reputation. Any thoughts anyone Thanks Roger http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk Where they land http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/map-of-cornwall.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk/magician-cornwall-magicians-hire-cornwall&h=904&w=1000&sz=167&tbnid=9GFlDv3BTz4ikM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=110&zoom=1&usg=__-b4bUYWREU_wAy2M04LrsrkzZpw=&docid=AUFmzso0arbGDM&sa=X&ei=HLZ2UpGYDMrY0QWXp4D4Dg&ved=0CEgQ9QEwAw&dur=2958
Technical SEO | | rnperki0 -
What is the best strategy for a company in various countries?
Hello I have to make yt SEO marketing strategy for a company that provides services in Spain, Colombia and Mexico
Technical SEO | | interficto
I'm looking at two options: Buy different domains (TLD): This option seems feasible but very expensive and manage each domain position it would have to have different content in each (plus you would not know that because it is put exactly the same domain) Place each service and country folders eg
www.dominio.com / mexico / training-financiero.html
www.dominio.com / espana / training-financiero.html I have understood that option 1 is no longer necessary since you can use html tags within the code to tell Google that you try to target content to customers from a different country.
In principle we would use the same content would change only a few words and of course the currency to suit the local currency of each country. However I believe that customers could rely more on a domain if their country. Plus I'm afraid I google indexed as duplicate content is another matter What country would main that could confuse the visitor?0 -
301 help, whats the best way
Hi all right now i have 301 redirects setup in my htaccess file i recently redesigned our site so i have been redirecting all the old urls to the new ones. I saw a post about having all your urls the same format, so i updated my htaccess file to redirect all urls from http://www.mysite.com/food to http://www.mysite.com/food/ (added a forward slash). Now on my latest seo crawl i see all my site urls, redirecting to the forward slash url. am i doing this right, thanks will
Technical SEO | | Will_Craig0 -
Can local SEO harm national rankings?
Today I met with a firm called Localeze that provides local directory submissions. I understand the importance of this service if your site is competing locally, however I'm not sure the effects of local SEO for a national brand. Our firm gets most of our traffic from across the country, not just one location, and our business is scattered (which is a good thing). We rank for service related keywords that are not tied to a location. We do not show up for local results so our business in our immediate location is weak. We would like to increase our local presence in search engines but I want to make sure that this will not take away from our national presence. Will optimizing a site for local search negatively affect general rankings? Thanks
Technical SEO | | KevinBloom1 -
Which is the best wordpress sitemap plugin
Does anyone have a recommendation for the best xml sitemap plugin for wordpress sites or do you steer clear of plugins and use a sitemap generator then load it up to the root manually?
Technical SEO | | simoncmason0 -
How can I get Google to crawl my site daily?
I was wndering if there was a trick to getting google to crawl my website daily?
Technical SEO | | labradoodlelocator0