Duplicate Content through 'Gclid'
-
Hello,
We've had the known problem of duplicate content through the gclid parameter caused by Google Adwords. As per Google's recommendation - we added the canonical tag to every page on our site so when the bot came to each page they would go 'Ah-ha, this is the original page'. We also added the paramter to the URL parameters in Google Wemaster Tools.
However, now it seems as though a canonical is automatically been given to these newly created gclid pages; below
Therefore these new pages are now being indexed, causing duplicate content. Does anyone have any idea about what to do in this situation?
Thanks,
Stephen.
-
Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to contribute.
If Google doesn't crawl and index, can you guys explain this?
I have found the solution elsewhere. The canonical tag is auto-generated, so it is creating it's own canonical tag for the pages. So we need to create a rule in the back end that exlcudes parameters after the end of our URL's
-
I completely agree with the above answer, the links with GCLID are generated through Google Adwords and so on they won't be available to Googlebot when crawling the site. Also if it even would happen you could let Google ignore that parameter, but as it's one of Googles own parameters I doubt it would ever get you in trouble.
-
Hi Stephen,
GoogleBot can't crawl links with a gclid, so they won't end up in the index and won't be flagged as duplicate pages.
AdWords does not work this way. The script that produces the ads contains no links--there's nothing for GoogleBot to discover without running the script. which it does not do. I am not certain that Google search produces the ads the same way, but what would be the point of GoogleBot crawling Google SERPs? It doesn't do that.
I do include canonical tag in the header of all our pages, which is one of Google's suggestions for dealing with this. I suppose that could be why I don't have an issue with this.
*If you don't believe this to be true, look through your logs and try to find one record of GoogleBot crawling an AdWords link with a valid gclid.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
Big retailers and duplicate content
Hello there! I was wondering if you guys have experience with big retailers sites fetching data via API (PDP content etc.) from another domain which is also sharing the same data with other multiple sites. If each retailer has thousands on products, optimizing PDP content (even in batches) is quite of a cumbersome task and rel="canonical" pointing to original domain will dilute the value. How would you approach this type of scenario? Looking forward to read your suggestions/experiences Thanks a lot! Best Sara
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SaraCoppola1 -
How to avoid duplicate content
Hi there, Our client has an ecommerce website, their products are also showing on an aggregator website (aka on a comparison website where multiple vendors are showing their products). On the aggregator website the same photos, titles and product descriptions are showing. Now with building their new website, how can we avoid such duplicate content? Or does Google even care in this case? I have read that we could show more product information on their ecommerce website and less details on the aggregator's website. But is there another or better solution? Many thanks in advance for any input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
PDF on financial site that duplicates ~50% of site content
I have a financial advisor client who has a downloadable PDF on his site that contains about 9 pages of good info. Problem is much of the content can also be found on individual pages of his site. Is it best to noindex/follow the pdf? It would be great to let the few pages of original content be crawlable, but I'm concerned about the duplicate content aspect. Thanks --
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 540SEO0 -
How to Best Establish Ownership when Content is Duplicated?
A client (Website A) has allowed one of their franchisees to use some of the content from their site on the franchisee site (Website B). This franchisee lifted the content word for word, so - my question is how to best establish that Website A is the original author? Since there is a business relationship between the two sites, I'm thinking of requiring Website B to add a rel=canonical tag to each page using the duplicated content and referencing the original URL on site A. Will that work, or is there a better solution? This content is primarily informational product content (not blog posts or articles), so I'm thinking rel=author may not be appropriate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
Duplicate blog content and NOINDEX
Suppose the "Home" page of your blog at www.example.com/domain/ displays your 10 most recent posts. Each post has its own permalink page (where you have comments/discussion, etc.). This obviously means that the last 10 posts show up as duplicates on your site. Is it good practice to use NOINDEX, FOLLOW on the blog root page (blog/) so that only one copy gets indexed? Thanks, Akira
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ahirai0 -
Bi-Lingual Site: Lack of Translated Content & Duplicate Content
One of our clients has a blog with an English and Spanish version of every blog post. It's in WordPress and we're using the Q-Translate plugin. The problem is that my company is publishing blog posts in English only. The client is then responsible for having the piece translated, at which point we can add the translation to the blog. So the process is working like this: We add the post in English. We literally copy the exact same English content to the Spanish version, to serve as a placeholder until it's translated by the client. (*Question on this below) We give the Spanish page a placeholder title tag, so at least the title tags will not be duplicate in the mean time. We publish. Two pages go live with the exact same content and different title tags. A week or more later, we get the translated version of the post, and add that as the Spanish version, updating the content, links, and meta data. Our posts typically get indexed very quickly, so I'm worried that this is creating a duplicate content issue. What do you think? What we're noticing is that growth in search traffic is much flatter than it usually is after the first month of a new client blog. I'm looking for any suggestions and advice to make this process more successful for the client. *Would it be better to leave the Spanish page blank? Or add a sentence like: "This post is only available in English" with a link to the English version? Additionally, if you know of a relatively inexpensive but high-quality translation service that can turn these translations around quicker than my client can, I would love to hear about it. Thanks! David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djreich0 -
Duplicate content from development website
Hi all - I've been trawling for duplicate content and then I stumbled across a development URL, set up by a previous web developer, which nearly mirrors current site (few content and structure changes since then, but otherwise it's all virtually the same). The developer didn't take it down when the site was launched. I'm guessing the best thing to do is tell him to take down the development URL (which is specific to the pizza joint btw, immediately. Is there anything else I should ask him to do? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Nuanced duplicate content problem.
Hi guys, I am working on a recently rebuilt website, which has some duplicate content issues that are more nuanced than usual. I have a plan of action (which I will describe further), so please let me know if it's a valid plan or if I am missing something. Situation: The client is targeting two types of users: business leads (Type A) and potential employees (Type B), so for each of their 22 locations, they have 2 pages - one speaking to Type A and another to Type B. Type A location page contains a description of the location. In terms of importance, Type A location pages are secondary because to the Type A user, locations are not of primary importance. Type B location page contains the same description of the location plus additional lifestyle description. These pages carry more importance, since they are attempting to attract applicants to work in specific places. So I am planning to rank these pages eventually for a combination of Location Name + Keyword. Plan: New content is not an option at this point, so I am planning to set up canonical tags on both location Types and make Type B, the canonical URL, since it carries more importance and more SEO potential. The main nuance is that while Type A and Type B location pages contain some of the same content (about 75%-80%), they are not exactly the same. That is why I am not 100% sure that I should canonicalize them, but still most of the wording on the page is identical, so... Any professional opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naymark.biz0