Duplicate Title Issues using # anchor tags
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Our homepage navigation uses anchor tags (?TabNumb=1#, ?TabNumb=1# etc) rather than directly linking to different pages to decrease load time (and simplify the build process I owuld imagine). These anchor links are showing up as duplicate titles in Moz.
I am pretty sure if I were to use noindex or rel tags, that could have a negative affect on my search results. Any way to tackle this outside of a complete redesign of the structure?
http://www.dedoose.com/about-us/?TabNum=2# as an example
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If your developers are able, I would prefer to see these tabs handled with hashes instead of URL parameters, like this:
- http://www.dedoose.com/in-the-field/#1 (Overview)
- http://www.dedoose.com/in-the-field/#2 (Publications)
- http://www.dedoose.com/in-the-field/#3 (Events)
- http://www.dedoose.com/in-the-field/#4 (Case Studies)
Even better would be to created dedicated pages for these topics and get rid of the tabs like Dirk mentioned.
Also as Dirk mentioned, set a canonical tag for these pages and crawlers should index them correctly: For example, all of your "In The Field" pages would have this exact canonical, regardless of parameters or hashes:
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If you only want to solve this issue - you could use a canonical url example http://www.dedoose.com/about-us/ - put a self referencing canonical. With the anchors - you are just navigating while staying on the same page so the canonical will do the trick.
You must know however that Google doesn't really like content which is hidden under tabs - check https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hidden-tab-content-seo-19489.html - so if you want to keep on using anchors to navigate on the page it's better to make sure that all the content is visible when the page is loaded.
Dirk
PS A small remark on usability - on your FAQ - you might want to put the link on the question as well - rather than only put the link on the small little cross.
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