Handling long URLs and overly-dynamic URLs on eCommerce site
-
Hello Forum,
I've been optimizing an eCommerce site and our SEOmoz crawls are favorable for the most part, except for long URLs and overly-dynamic URLs. These issues stem from two URL types: Layered navigation (faceted search) and non-Google internal search results. I outline the issues for each below.
We use an SEO-friendly URL structure for our product category pages, but once bots start "clicking" our layered navigation options, all the parameters are appended to our SEO-friendly urls, causing the SEOmoz crawl warnings.
Layered Navigation :
SEO-Friendly Category Page: oursite.com/shop/meditation-cushions.htmlEffects of layered navigation: oursite.com/shop/meditation-cushions.html?bolster_material_quality=414&bolsters_appearance=206&color=12&dir=asc&height=291&order=name
As you can see the parameters include product attributes and page sorts. I should note that all pages generated by these parameters use the element to point back to the SEO-friendly URL We have also set up Google's Webmaster Tools to handle these parameters.
Internal Search Function:
Our URLs start off simple: oursite.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=brown. Then the bot clicks all the layered navigation options, yielding oursite.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?appearance=54&cat=67&clothing_material=83&color=12&product_color=559&q=brown. Also, all search results are set to noindex,follow.My question is: Should we worry about these overly-dynamic and long ULR warnings? We have set up canonical elements, "noindex,follow" solutions, and configured Webmaster Tools to handle our parameters. If these are a concern, how would you resolve these issues?
-
I see this thread was from last year, so I am hoping between then and now you have determined an answer and would be able to advise. I am having the same issue with our consumer sight.
-
If you make them friendly it will shorten them
x=y can become y
But having done that and they are still too long i would ignore them as they are no-index.
-
There another company handling the server side of things. All I know is that we're using PHP and MySQL for Magento.
Even if we did a friendly URL rewrite, wouldn't we still get long URLs? We would just have each parameter become words separated by slashed. i.e .
/shop/meditation-cushions.html/high quaily/patterened/green/10inches/sortedbyname/
I suppose these URLs shorter. Is something like this better?
-
Marc
The crawl warnings are those found in SEOmoz's crawl diagnostics: "Overly-Dynamic URL" and "Long URL." These are not duplicate content issues and the URLs resolve properly.
I just want to make sure we're not getting dinged for having URLs that are too long. If we are, what are some way to go about shortening them?
-Aaron
-
What kind of "crawl warnings" are we talking about here? Duplicate content? Do the URL's resolve properly when the additional parameters are appending to the SEO-friendly URL's?
"I should note that all pages generated by these parameters use the element to point back to the SEO-friendly URL We have also set up Google's Webmaster Tools to handle these parameters."
Keep in mind, using canonical tags is like setting up 301 redirects on all those pages. Some people don't now that, so I thought I'd just throw it out there. So, if any of those additional pages with the host of parameters contain unique/different content than the seo-friendly versions, using canonical tags is not a good move as they will get no attention from search engines that respect the canonical tag.
For example, do not use a canonical tag on a 'Page 2' to point back to page 1. Each page will contain different information/products/whatever, and you want search engines (SE) to see and index those pages, regardless of what the URL looks like (as long as it works and your Title/META/H1-H6 tags are all in order to reflect the different content on each page.
I'm not sure I'm following your concern 100% percent, so I hope I was on the right path with what I said. Can you please be more specific as to what you concern is with the "overly-dynamic and long ULR warnings" please, and I'll be happy to help you out some more.
- Marc
-
The easy fix is the canonical, yet Bing suggest not using the canonical on the true page, only the duplicates. Best if you can handle that in code, but not a big worry of you cant.
Facet naviagtion is a big problem, with no easy answers.
What sort of server are you using, on a windows server it is very easy to set up friendly urls for your dynamic urls.
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
-
Tool Request - What keywords does a site rank for?
Hi folks, Something I've never had to do before so I'm not sure which tool to use, but is there a way to determine the keywords that a website currently ranks for? Hope someone can assist 🙂
Moz Pro | | ChristopherM1 -
Tools that crawl 2 million page sites
Our site is about 2million pages deep, 50% of which is stale content. Yes, I know - OMG #unhygienic. Even if we get approval to get rid of half of it. SEOMoz Pro Elite only crawls 20k deep - what can i do to crawl and diagnose the whole site. Are there any tools anyone can suggest. SEOMoz??
Moz Pro | | ilhaam0 -
Usable to set up campaign because site cannot be
I don't understand this message. i never had problems with other sites and now I get problems with this message when trying to set a campaign twice for 2 different sites. I received the same message twice. What do I do? Help! We have detected that the root domain xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx does not respond to web requests. Using this domain, we will be unable to crawl your site or present accurate SERP information. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | mcuneo0 -
Getting your site totally indexed by SEOMOZ
Hi guys! Ijust started using SEOMOZ software and wondered how it could be that my site has over 10.000 pages but in the Pro Dashboard it only indexed about 1500 of them. I've been waiting a few weeks now but the number has been stable ever since. Is there a way to get the whole site indexed by SEOMoz software? Thanks for your answers!
Moz Pro | | ssiebn70 -
Bulk OSE Open Site Explorer Tool?
I am trying to do some spring cleaning for a client and hoping to prune any unnecessary domains. Is there a tool that will check, in bulk, these domains through Open Site Explorer? I've looked through all the different Excel spread sheet apps and google doc apps but they are incredibly buggy if they work at all since SEOmoz changed their data limits. Maybe a new tool has been updated in the last few months that I am not aware of. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | kerplow0 -
Why is the SEOmoz customer service on this site so awful?
Half the time the tools don't work and there isn't any accountability. Has anyone else had the same experience?
Moz Pro | | wpsoule1 -
Open Site Explorer Page Authority
Hello, I ran a report on my website at http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.carrentalbuddy.com.au and noticed my page authority went to 1. I also noticed a lot of our results that were showing high page authority have dropped right down. I checked other sites and they all seemed fine but was wondering if this is a open site explorer issue or a a www.carrentalbuddy.com.au issue? Kindest Regards, Chris
Moz Pro | | kymodo0 -
How long do old links stay in Open SIte Explorer stats?
Hi, In Open Site Explorer has around 2000 External followed links which would be great if it was true. I think the issue is that before my site wasn't appending slashes to the url so I think it was counting links from http://mydomain/page1 to http://mydomain/page2/ as an external link (could be wrong here). I corrected this a couple of months ago but I still seem to have over 2000 External links. When I look at the linking pages many of them are "sans slash" and have old anchor text in the link. How long does it take of OSE to update these stale links it there any way I can prompt it to take aciton?
Moz Pro | | moesian0