Duplicate content with "no results found" search result pages
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We have a motorcycle classifieds section that lets users search for motorcycles for sale using various drop down menus to pick year-make-type-model-trim, etc..
These search results create urls such as:
www.example.com/classifieds/search.php?vehicle_manufacturer=Triumph&vehicle_category=On-Off Road&vehicle_model=Tiger&vehicle_trim=800 XC ABSWe understand that all of these URL varieties are considered unique URLs by Google. The issue is that we are getting duplicate content errors on the pages that have no results as they have no content to distinguish themselves from each other.
A URL like:
www.example.com/classifieds/search.php?vehicle_manufacturer=Triumph&vehicle_category=Sportbike
and
www.example.com/classifieds/search.php?vehicle_manufacturer=Honda&vehicle_category=StreetbikeWill have a results page that says "0 results found".
I'm wondering how we can distinguish these "unique" pages better?
Some thoughts:
-make sure <title>reflects what was search<br />-add a heading that may say "0 results found for Triumph On-Off Road Tiger 800 XC ABS"<br /><br />Can anyone please help out and lend some ideas in solving this? <br /><br />Thank you.</p></title> -
Firstly, you might want to create landing pages with better URL's for certain manufactures like:
www.example.com/classifieds/honda-bikes/
www.example.com/classifieds/kawasaki-bikes/And no-index 0 result pages programatically.
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Hi Rob,
Why can't you block search pages in robots.txt ? As they are not unique, those pages get generated based upon drop down box selection. And for not found you can show message "0 results found for Triumph On-Off Road Tiger 800 XC ABS" but "you might be below bikes" and show most viewed pages of your website. Some websites also shows html sitemap from where user can navigate to other places of website.
Hope this help you out...
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