How to handle (internal) search result pages?
-
Hi Mozers,
I'm not quite sure what the best way is to handle internal search pages. In this case it's for an ecommerce website with about 8.000+ products and search pages currently look like: example.com/search.php?search=QUERY+HERE.
I'm leaning towards making them follow, noindex. Since pages like this can be easily abused for duplicate content and because I'd rather have the category pages ranked.
How would you handle this?
-
If none of these pages are indexed, you can block them via robots.txt. But if someone else links to a search page from somewhere on the web, google might include the url in the index, and then it'll just be a blank entry, as they can't crawl the page and see not to index it, as it's blocked via robots.txt.
-
Thanks for the quick response.
If the pages are presently not indexed, is there any advantage to follow/noindex over blocking via robots.php?
I guess my question is whether it's better or worse to have those pages spidered (by definition, any content that appears on these pages exists somewhere else on the site, since it is a search page)... what do you think?
-
Blocking the pages via robots.txt prevents the spiders from reaching those pages. It doesn't remove those pages from the index if they are already there, it just prevents the bots from getting to them.
If you want these pages removed from your index, and not to impact the size of your index in the search engines, ideally you remove them with the noindex tag.
-
Hi Mark,
Can you explain why this is better than excluding the pages via robots.txt?
-
How did it turn out? And Mark have you done much with internal search?
-
As long as you're sure that no organic search traffic is coming in via ranked search results pages from your site, it would be of no harm just to prevent search engines from indexing those pages as per the robots.txt directive I mentioned above - then just focus all your attention on the other pages of your site.
With regards to the unique content, always try and find the time to produce unique content on the category pages, these were the ones you mentioned you wanted to rank. Normally this is feasible providing you haven't got over 1,000 categories.
Feel free to PM me over a link to your ecommerce website if you would like me to take a look at any of the situation in greater detail.
-
Thanks for the reply. Yes, there is a semi-chance of duplicate content. And to be honest, the search function is not really great.
There are no visitors coming from the search pages, since we haven't build links specifically for those pages. As for the unique content, it's hard. Since we have so many products it's not really possible. We are working on optimizing our top 100 products though.
-
I'd do exactly what you're saying. Make the pages no index, follow. If they're already indexed, you can remove the page search.php from the engines through webmaster tools.
Let me know how it turns out.
-
How I would handle this would depend upon the performance of the ecommerce website and which entrance paths via the website convert higher.
You could easily instruct search engines not to index the search results page by adding the following in your robots.txt:-
Disallow: /search.php?search=*
But is there a real likelihood of duplicate matching content with your actual category pages? It's unlikely in all honesty - but depending on your website content and product range, I suppose possible.
If many visits to your website arrive via indexed search result pages, I would be inclined to leave them indexed however and implement measures to ensure that they won't be flagged as duplicate content.
Ways to handle this depend on your ecommerce provider and it's capabilities sometimes but more often that not, is just a case of ensuring there is plenty of unique content on your category pages (as there should be) and there is no chance of other pages of your website hindering their ranking potential then.
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
-
Is it good to redirect million of pages on a single page?
My site has 10 lakh approx. genuine urls. But due to some unidentified bugs site has created irrelevant urls 10 million approx. Since we don’t know the origin of these non-relevant links, we want to redirect or remove all these urls. Please suggest is it good to redirect such a high number urls to home page or to throw 404 for these pages. Or any other suggestions to solve this issue.
Technical SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
How come only 2 pages of my 16 page infographic are being crawled by Moz?
Our Infographic titled "What Is Coaching" was officially launched 5 weeks ago. http://whatiscoaching.erickson.edu/ We set up campaigns in Moz & Google Analytics to track its performance. Moz is reporting No organic traffic and is only crawling 2 of the 16 pages we created. (see first and third attachments) Google Analytics is seeing hundreds of some very strange random pages (see second attachment) Both campaigns are tracking the url above. We have no idea where we've gone wrong. Please help!! 16_pages_seen_in_wordpress.png how_google_analytics_sees_pages.png what_moz_sees.png
Technical SEO | | EricksonCoaching0 -
What is the best way to handle links that lead to a 404 page
Hi Team Moz, I am working through a site cutover with an entirely new URL structure and have a bunch of pages that could not, would not or just plain don't redirect to new pages. Steps I have taken: Multiple new sitemaps submitted with new URLs and the indexing looks solid used webmasters to remove urls with natural result listings that did not redirect and produce urls Completely built out new ppc campaigns with new URL structures contacted few major link partners Now here is my question: I have a pages that produce 404s that are linked to in forums, slick deals and stuff like that which will not be redirected. Is disavowing these links the correct thing to do?
Technical SEO | | mm9161570 -
Page Content
Our site is a home to home moving listing portal. Consumers who wants to move his home fills a form so that moving companies can cote prices. We were generating listing page URL’s by using the title submitted by customer. Unfortunately we have understood by now that many customers have entered exactly same title for their listings which has caused us having hundreds of similar page title. We have corrected all the pages which had similar meta tag and duplicate page title tags. We have also inserted controls to our software to prevent generating duplicate page title tags or meta tags. But also the page content quality not very good because page content added by customer.(example: http://www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/evden-eve--6001) What should I do. Please help me.
Technical SEO | | iskq0 -
Google appending keyword to local search result(s)?
I noticed an interesting change today in how one of my clients appears in the SERPs. Google seems to be appending a keyword to his listing title. Client website: www.mycalgarydentist.com Keyword: Calgary dentist Rank: #2 or #1 lately Title tag: Calgary Dentist | Ambiance Dental Google+ Local listing title: Ambiance Dental Link title in SERP: Ambiance Dental: Calgary Dentist That last point is what's interesting, and new. As of a couple weeks ago (before I went on holidays) his link would simply show "Ambiance Dental", which makes sense because that's the title of his Google+ Local listing. Given the above information, I can't see why his link in Google's SERP is "Ambiance Dental: Calgary Dentist" when doing a search for that keyword. When I do a search for "Calgary dentists" or other similar searches, he simply shows as "Ambiance Dental", not "Ambiance Dental: Calgary Dentists" To test yourself, use the Google AdWords Preview Tool (https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/), change locality to "Calgary, AB, Canada" and search. I suspect this doesn't mean he's violating Google's guidelines for business listings (i.e. businesses aren't supposed to add keywords to their business title). I'm certainly curious why this is happening though. Can anyone provide any insight? Has anyone seen anything similar? calgary-dentist-search.png
Technical SEO | | Kenoshi0 -
Search result pages - noindex but auto follow?
Hi guys, I don't index my search pages, and currently my pages are tagged name="robots" content="noindex"> Do I need to specify follow or will it automatically be done? Thanks Cyto
Technical SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Two different page authority ranks for the same page
I happened to notice that trophycentral.com and www.trophycentral.com have two different page ranks even though there is a 301 redirect. Should I be concerned? http://trophycentral.com Page Authority: 47 Domain Authority: 42 http://www.trophycentral.com Page Authority: 51 Domain Authority: 42 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0 -
My urls changed with new CMS now search engines see pages as 302s what do I do?
We recently changed our CMS from php to .NET. The old CMS did not allow for folder structure in urls so every url was www.mydomain/name-of-page. In the new CMS we either have to have .aspx at the end of the url or a /. We opted for the /, but now my page rank is dead and Google webmaster tools says my existing links are now going through an intermediary page. Everything resolves to the right place, but looks like spiders see our new pages as being 302 redirected. Example of what's happening. Old page: www.mydomain/name-of-page New page: www.mydomain/name-of-page/ What should I do? Should I go in and 301 redirect the old pages? Will this get cleared up by itself in time?
Technical SEO | | rasiadmin10