Does Google pass link juice a page receives if the URL parameter specifies content and has the Crawl setting in Webmaster Tools set to NO?
-
The page in question receives a lot of quality traffic but is only relevant to a small percent of my users. I want to keep the link juice received from this page but I do not want it to appear in the SERPs.
-
Update - Google has crawled this correctly and is returning the correct, redirected page. Meaning, it seems to have understood that we don't want any of the parametered versions indexed ("return representative link") from our original page and all of its campaign-tracked brethren, and is then redirecting from the representative link correctly.
And finally there was peace in the universe...for now. ;> Tim
-
Agree...it feels like leaving a bit to chance, but I'll keep an eye on it over the next few weeks to see what comes of it. We seem to be re-indexed every couple of days, so maybe I can test it out Monday.
BTW, this issue really came up when we were creating a server side 301 redirect for the root URL, and then I got to wondering if we'd need to set up an irule for all parameters. Hopefully not...hopefully Google will figure it out for us.
Thanks Peter. Tim
-
It's really tough to say, but moving away from "Let Google decide" to a more definitive choice seems like a good next step. You know which URL should be canonical, and it's not the parameterized version (if I'm understanding correctly).
If you say "Let Google decide", it seems a bit more like rel=prev/next. Google may allow any page in the set to rank, BUT they won't treat those pages as duplicates, etc. How does this actually impact the PR flow to any given page in that series? We have no idea. They're probably consolidating them on the fly, to some degree. They basically have to be, since the page they choose to rank form the set is query-dependent.
-
This question deals with dynamically created pages, it seems, and Google seems to recommend NOT choosing the "no" option in WMT - choose "yes" when you edit the parameter settings for this and you'll see an option for your case, I think, Christian (I know this is 3 years late, but still).
BUT I have a situation where we use SiteCatalyst to create numerous tracking codes as parameters to a URL. Since there is not a new page being created, we are following Google's advice to select "no" - apparently will:
"group the duplicate URLs into one cluster and select what we think is the "best" URL to represent the cluster in search results. We then consolidate properties of the URLs in the cluster, such as link popularity, to the representative URL."
What worries me is that a) the "root" URL will not be returned, somehow (perhaps due to freakish amount of inbound linking to one of our parametered URLs), and b) the root URL will not be getting the juice. The reason we got suspicious about this problem in the first place was that Google was returning one of our parametered URLs (PA=45) instead of the "root" URL (PA=58).
This may be an anomaly that will be sorted out now that we changed the parameter setting from "Let Google Decide" to "No, page does not change" i.e. return the "Representative" link, but would love your thoughts - esp on the juice passage.
Tim
-
This sounds unusual enough that I'd almost have to see it in action. Is the JS-based URL even getting indexed? This might be a non-issue, honestly. I don't have solid evidence either way about GWT blocking passing link-juice, although I suspect it behaves like a canonical in most cases.
-
I agree. The URL parameter option seems to be the best solution since this is not a unique page. It is the main page with javascript that calls for additional content to be displayed in the form of a lightbox overlay if the condition is right. Since it is not an actual page, I cannot add the rel-canonical statement to the header. It is not clear however, whether the link juice will be passed with this parameter setting in Webmaster Tools.
-
If you're already use rel-canonical, then there's really no reason to also block the parameter. Rel-canonical will preserve any link-juice, and will also keep the page available to visitors (unlike a 301-redirect).
Are you seeing a lot of these pages indexed (i.e. is the canonical tag not working)? You could block the parameter in that case, but my gut reaction is that it's unnecessary and probably counter-productive. Google may just need time to de-index (it can be a slow process).
I suspect that Google passes some link-juice through blocked parameters and treats it more like a canonical, but it may be situational and I haven't seen good data on that. So many things in Google Webmaster Tools end up being a bit of a black box. Typically, I view it as a last resort.
-
I can just repeat myself: Set Crawl to yes and use rel canonical with website.com/?v3 pointing to website.com
-
My fault for not being clear.
I understand that the rel=canonical cannot be added to the robot.txt file. We are already using the canonical statement.
I do not want to add the page with the url parameter to the robot.txt file as that would prevent the link juice from being passed.
Perhaps this example will help clarify:
URL = website.com
ULR parameter = website.com/?v3
website.com/?v3 has a lot of backlinks. How can I pass the link juice to website.com and Not have website.com/?v3 appear in the SERP"s?
-
I'm getting a bit lost with your explanation, maybe it would be easier if I saw the urls, but here"s a brief:
I would not use parameters at all. Cleen urls are best for seo, remove everything not needed. You definately don't need an url parameter to indicate that content is unique for 25%of traffic. (I got a little bit lost here: how can a content be unique for just part of your traffic. If it is found elsewhere on your pae it is not unique, if it is not found elswehere, it is unique) So anyway those url parameters do not indicate nothing to google, just stuff your url structure with useles info (for google) so why use them?
I am already using a link rel=canonical statement. I don't want to add this to the robots.txt file as that would prevent the juice from being passed.
I totally don't get this one. You can't add canonical to robots.txt. This is not a robots.txt statement.
To sum up: If you do not want your parametered page to appear in the serps than as I said: Set Crawl to yes! and use rel canonical. This way page will no more apperar in serps, but will be available for readers and will pass link juice.
-
The parameter to this URL specifies unique content for 25% of my traffic to the home page. If I use a 301 redirect than those people will not see the unique content that is relevant to them. But since this parameter is only relevant to 25% of my traffic, I would like the main URL displayed in the SERPs rather then the unique one.
Google's Webmaster Tools let you choose how you would Google to handle URL parameters. When using this tool you must specify the parameters effect on content. You can then specify what you would like googlebot to crawl. If I say NO crawl, I understand that the page with this parameter will not be crawled but will the link juice be passed to the page without the parameter?
I am already using a link rel=canonical statement. I don't want to add this url parameter to the robots.txt file either as that would prevent the juice from being passed.
What is the best way to keep this parameter and pass the juice to the main page but not have the URL parameter displayed in the SERPs?
-
What do you men by url parameter specifies content?
If a page is not crawled it definately won't pass link juice. Set Crawl to yes and use rel canonical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM
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
-
Webmaster tools showing 200 page load ok - all other testing tools show a 301
hey, on https://www.xxx.co we've setup a 301 redirect to xxx.us - > BUT in webmaster tools its still showing a 200 load ok, whereas on all other testing tools its showing a 301 redirect (screamingfrog etc) even https://dns.google.com/query?name=www.xxx.co is showing that its 301 redirected. Any ideas? as we want to trigger the change of address tool in WMT and its saying it cant as it loads the homepage still....
Technical SEO | | RobertN-London0 -
Has Google Stopped Listing URLs with Crawl Errors in Webmaster Tools?
I went to Google Webmaster Tools this morning and found that one of my clients had 11 crawl errors. However, Webmaster Tools is not showing which URLs are having experiencing the errors, which it used to do. (I checked several other clients that I manage and they list crawl errors without showing the specific URLs. Does anyone know how I can find out which URLs are experiencing problems? (I checked with Bing Webmaster Tools and the number of errors are different).
Technical SEO | | TopFloor0 -
Google Shows 24K Links b/w 2 sites that are not linked
Good Morning, Does anyone have any idea why Google WMT shows me that i have 24,101 backlinks from one of my sites ( http://goo.gl/Jb4ng ) pointing to my other site ( http://goo.gl/JgK1e ) ... These sites have zero links between them, as far as I can see/tell. Can someone please help me figure out why Google is showing 24k backlinks? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Duplicate pages, overly dynamic URL’s and long URL’s in Magento
Hi there, I’ve just completed the first crawl of my Magento site and SEOMOZ has picked up 1,000’s of duplicate pages, overly dynamic URL’s and long URL’s due to the sort function which appends URL’s with variables when sorting products (e.g. www.example.com?dir=asc&order=duration). I’m not particularly concerned that this will affect our rankings as Google has stated that they are familiar with the structure of popular CMS’s and Magento is pretty popular. However it completely dominates my crawl diagnostics so I can’t see if there are any real underlying issues. Does anyone know a way of preventing this? Cheers,
Technical SEO | | WendyWuTours
Al.1 -
Google webmaster tools
I have linked webmaster tools to Google analytics account. My question is where can i see Webmaster reports in Google analytics ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Google Webmaster tools error?
So I am trying to set the URL preference in google webmaster tools for my site. However when I try to save it it tells me to verify that I own the site. I have already done this so where can I go to verify I own the site exactly? Maybe I am wrong and I have not done this already but even on the homepage of webmaster tools I don't see an option to "verify".
Technical SEO | | ENSO0 -
Should we use Google's crawl delay setting?
We’ve been noticing a huge uptick in Google’s spidering lately, and along with it a notable worsening of render times. Yesterday, for example, Google spidered our site at a rate of 30:1 (google spider vs. organic traffic.) So in other words, for every organic page request, Google hits the site 30 times. Our render times have lengthened to an avg. of 2 seconds (and up to 2.5 seconds). Before this renewed interest Google has taken in us we were seeing closer to one second average render times, and often half of that. A year ago, the ratio of Spider to Organic was between 6:1 and 10:1. Is requesting a crawl-delay from Googlebot a viable option? Our goal would be only to reduce Googlebot traffic, and hopefully improve render times and organic traffic. Thanks, Trisha
Technical SEO | | lzhao0 -
Crawl report showing only 1 crawled page
Hi, I´m really new to this and have just setup some Campaigns. I have setup a Campaign for the root domain: portaldeldiablo.com.uy which returned only 2 crawled pages.. As this page had a 301 redirect from the non-www to the www version, I deleted this Campaign and setup a new one for www.portaldeldiablo.com.uy which returned only 1 crawled page.. I really don´t know why is my website not being crawled..Thanks in advance for your help.
Technical SEO | | ceci27100