Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Layered navigation and hiding nav from user agent

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Layered navigation and hiding nav from user agent

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    7
    1795
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Kyle_M
      Kyle_M Subscriber last edited by

      I am trying to deal with the duplicate content issues presented by Magento's layered navigation feature (aka faceted navigation). I installed Amasty's Improved Navigation extension (https://amasty.com/improved-layered-navigation.html) and it offers the option to hide the layered navigation from specific user agents (ie googlebot, bingbot, etc).

      This seems like cloaking to me and I hesitate to try it, unless hiding faceted navigation from specific user agents is known to be acceptable to Google (white hat practice). Does anyone know if this the case?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Kyle_M
        Kyle_M Subscriber @Carson-Ward last edited by

        Great, thanks Carson! You're insights have been very helpful. I think we'll try to make the on-page ajax solution work.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Carson-Ward
          Carson-Ward @Kyle_M last edited by

          If you're really worried about indexation I think that's a fine solution. It's definitely easier to manage, and it'll also be easier to track pageviews in most analytics platforms. The only downside is that if someone emails or links to a category page with filters applied the recipient won't see it. But generally people share products and not category pages, so it's not a big deal. I'd probably go that route.

          Also make sure that your category pages still update the URL when you go to page 2, or that page 2 is somehow also being indexed. You don't want products that don't get indexed because categories can't be crawled.

          Kyle_M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Kyle_M
            Kyle_M Subscriber @Carson-Ward last edited by

            Thanks for the link! I can see how Google offers me a way to tell it how to use my site variables. It seems like between managing parameters in webmaster tools, using canonical links and adding meta noindex tags on variable pages, there should be enough to keep things in order with the search engines. And I can just assume Google knows not to waste too much crawl budget on the variable pages.

            I was considering one other option that would remove concerns about variables altogether. Using a different extension, I can set up Magento's layered navigation to work on the page without updating the URL. This eliminates the need for canonicals, parameters, and everything else that is more in Google's control than mine. What do you think of that as a solution?

            Carson-Ward 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Carson-Ward
              Carson-Ward @Kyle_M last edited by

              Yes, the bots will crawl the pages, but they will not INDEX them.

              There is a concern there, but mostly if the bots get caught in some kind of crawl trap - where they're trying out a near-infinite set of variables and getting stuck in a loop. Otherwise the spiders should understand the variables. You can actually check it in Webmaster tools to make sure Google understands. Instructions for that here:

              https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080550?hl=en

              Ultimately Google will definitely not penalize you for having lots of duplicate content on URLs through variables, but it might be an issue with Googlebot not finding all your pages. You can make sure that doesn't happen by checking the indexation of your sitemap.

              You could also try to block any URLs with the URL parameter in robots.txt. Make sure you get some help on the RegEx if you plan to do this. My advice is that blocking the variables in robots.txt is not worth it, as Google should have no problems with the variables - especially if the canonical tags are working.

              Googlebot at least is smart enough these days to know when to stop crawling variable pages, so I think there are more important on-site things to worry about. Make sure your categories are linked to and optimized, for example.

              Kyle_M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Kyle_M
                Kyle_M Subscriber @Carson-Ward last edited by

                This gets into an issue of bots and crawling where I am less clear. Even with canonicals, don't search engine bots crawl all of the pages produced with faceted navigation? That will easily reach 10,000+ pages on my site, which currently has a total number of pages in the low hundreds.  I was under the impression I don't want to set up the faceted navigation in a way where the bots crawl through every combination of pages created by my products' attribute filters and bog the bots down in a quagmire of low-value pages. But I'm not sure if that's the case or how concerned I need to be about the bots spending their time on those pages.

                Carson-Ward 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Carson-Ward
                  Carson-Ward last edited by

                  If I'm not mistaken Magento has canonical tags on category pages by default, so you might be trying to solve an issue that doesn't exist. Take a look at the source code on faceted navigation to confirm. Or you can send me the site and I'll look over it.

                  Kyle_M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • dailynaukri

                    Duplicate without user-selected canonical excluded

                    We have pdf files uploaded in the media of wordpress and used in our website. As these pdfs are duplicate content of the original publishers, we have marked links to these pdf urls as nofollow. These pages are also disallowed in robots.txt Now, Google Search Console has shown these pages Excluded as "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" As it comes out we cannot use canonical tag with pdf pages so as to point to the original pdf source If we embed a pdf viewer in our website and fetch the pdfs by passing the urls of the original publisher, would the pdfs be still read as text by google and again create duplicate content issue? Another thing, when the pdf expires and is removed, it would lead to 404 error. If we direct our users to the third party website, then it would add up to our bounce rate. What should be the appropriate way to handle duplicate pdfs? Thanks

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dailynaukri
                    1
                  • viatrading1

                    Faceted Navigation URLs Best Practices

                    Hi, We are developing new Products Pages with faceted filters. You can see it here: https://www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ We have a feature allowing to Order By and Group By, which alters the order of all products. There will also be the option to view Products as a table, which will contain same products but with different design and maybe slightly different content of each product. All this will happen without changing the URL, https://www.viatrading.com/all/ Is this the best practice? Thanks,

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
                    0
                  • Raymondlee

                    Using CSS to hide anchor text

                    Hi all, In my website, I would like to use CSS to set the anchor text to "website design service"(my company provides web design service) but show the button text as "website", due to some artistic reasons. Therefore, the anchor text for the link is "website design service" but what users see is "websites". Does this sound spammy to Google? Is it a risky move that might hurt my SEO? Looking for some advises here. Thank you very much. Best,

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee
                    0
                  • onurcan-ikiz

                    Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?

                    Hi Moz community, I am getting the "Avoid Too Many Internal Links" error from Moz for most of my pages and Google declared the max number as 100 internal links. However, most of my pages can't have internal links less than 100, since it is a commercial website and there are many categories that I have to show to my visitors by using the drop down navigation bar. Without counting the links in the navigation bar, the number of internal links is below 100. I am wondering if the navigation bar links affect the link juice and counted as internal links by Google. The Same question also applies to the links in the footer. Additionally, how about the products? I have hundreds of products in the category pages and even though I use pagination I still have many links in the category pages (probably more than 100 without even counting the navigation bar links). Does Google count the product links as internal links and how about the effect on the link juice? Here is the website if you want to take a look: http://www.goldstore.com.tr Thank you for your answers.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onurcan-ikiz
                    0
                  • Sundance_Kidd

                    How does Infinite Scrolling work with unique URLS as users scroll down? And is this SEO friendly?

                    I was on a site today and as i scrolled down and viewed the other posts that were below the top one i read, i noticed that each post below the top one had its own unique URL. I have not seen this and was curious if this method of infinite scrolling is SEO friendly. Will Google's spiders scroll down and index these posts below the top one and index them? The URLs of these lower posts by the way were the same URLs that would be seen if i clicked on each of these posts. Looking at Google's preferred method for Infinite scrolling they recommend something different - https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/02/infinite-scroll-search-friendly.html . Welcome all insight. Thanks! Christian

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sundance_Kidd
                    0
                  • ennovators

                    Replace dynamic paramenter URLs with static Landing Page URL - faceted navigation

                    Hi there, got a quick question regarding faceted navigation. If a specific filter (facet) seems to be quite popular for visitors. Does it make sense to replace a dynamic URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants.html?a_type=239 by a static, more SEO friendly URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants/levis-pants.html by creating a proper landing page for it. I know, that it is nearly impossible to replace all variations of this parameter URLs by static ones but does it generally make sense to do this for the most popular facets choose by visitors. Or does this cause any issues? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ennovators
                    0
                  • veezer

                    HTML5 Nav Tag Issue - Be Aware

                    In checking my internal links with GWT, it is apparent that links within the nav tag in HTML5 are discounted by Google as "internal links" This could have major repercussions for designing your internal link structure for SEO purposes. I was surprised to see this result, as I have never seen it discussed. Anyone else notice this, or have any alternative views?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | veezer
                    0
                  • bigtimeseo

                    Should I nofollow the main navigation on certain pages?

                    We have several large Ecommerce sites with hundreds of links on each page. I have been trying to think of ways to focus our internal linking to increase certain pages relevancy. My thought was to put nofollow in the main navigation (since there are hundreds of links there controlled by dropdowns) and only follow the links on each page for the products we are selling and promoting (15-20 links). I would still be using a sitemap that includes the links. Is this a terrible idea? if a link is nofollowed in the main navigation does that still count as the one mention for google if it points to the same page that a normal link points too that is in the content of the page? since all of the main navigation is the same on every page of the website would it be good to only put nofollow on the subpages/subsections and leave the home page navigation alone (that would allow the spiders to crawl all of those links on the home page but not crawl those same links on the subsections where I could then focus the linking).

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bigtimeseo
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.