Robots.txt & Duplicate Content
-
In reviewing my crawl results I have 5666 pages of duplicate content. I believe this is because many of the indexed pages are just different ways to get to the same content. There is one primary culprit. It's a series of URL's related to CatalogSearch - for example; http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=Mobile
I have 10074 of those links indexed according to my MOZ crawl. Of those 5349 are tagged as duplicate content. Another 4725 are not.
Here are some additional sample links:
http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?dir=desc&order=relevance&p=2&q=Amy
http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?color=28&q=bellemonde
http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?cat=9&color=241&dir=asc&order=relevance&q=baggalliniAll of these links are just different ways of searching through our product catalog. My question is should we disallow - catalogsearch via the robots file? Are these links doing more harm than good?
-
For product pages, I would canonical the page with the most descriptive URL.
For category pages, I agree with you, I would noindex them.
I think I just answered my own question!!
-
Oke, the question concerning rel="canonical" is which URL becomes the canonical version? Since there is no page on the website which would be appropiate (as far as i've seen) i recommended the meta robots tag.
I do agree that rel="canonical" is the preferred option, but in this situation i can't see a way to implement it properly. Which page would you highlight as the canonical?
-
I agree entirely that "Search result pages are too varied to be included in the index".
That said, my understanding is that if you canonical a page, it doesn't get indexed. So we wouldn't have to worry about the appearance / user-friendliness of the URL. But (again, in my opinion) we should still worry about link equity being passed, and that won't happen if you noindex.
This gets complicated fast. I like your solution b/c it's a lot cleaner and easier to implement. Still not convinced it's the "best" way to go though.
-
Where is the evidence that these work? I have never seen them work. Google totally ignores the URL parameters tools in GWTs.
-
I do agree that a rel="canonical" is good option for the problem that's at hand.
As jeremy has stated however the link we are referring to in the href section redirects to the home page. http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/index/In my original answer i did not test this. I assumed there would be a list of all products here not filtered by search results. Since this is not the case and this page in fact does not exist it's hard to point at a url to be canonical.
Therefor i changed my answer to include the robots meta tag. This would indeed remove the search pages from the search index. I do think this is a positive thing though.
Look at the following url: http://www.careerbags.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=rolling+laptop+bags
Not really the type of URL i would click on in the search results. The following URL however is something i would want to click on: http://www.careerbags.com/laptop-bags/women-s/rolling-laptop-bags.html
Search result pages are too varied to be included in the index to my opinion.
Hope you agree with this, if not then i would like to hear your thoughts on this.
-
Simon, Wesley, Michael...
These customer facing search result pages are the ones often bookmarked and shared by site visitors. How worried does one need to be about losing link equity? I realize every site is going to be different and social shares don't have link equity - at least for now - but this could add up over time. The rel canonical will enable capture of link equity whereas the robots noindex will not.
Am I over thinking this?
-
In this case you could add the meta robots tag on the search result pages like this:
content="noindex, follow">
Search results can indeed spawn an infinite amount of different URL's. This can be avoided by making sure they are not included in the index but are followed.
-
Webmaster guidelines specifically request that you prevent crawling of search results pages using a robots.txt file. The relevant section reads: "Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines."
-
There are 2 distinct possible issues here
1. Search results are creating duplicate content
2. Search results are creating lots of thin content
You want to give the user every possibility of finding your products, but you don't want those search results indexed because you should already have your source product page indexed and aiming to rank well. If not see last paragraph.
I slightly misread your post and took the URLs to be purely filtered. You should add disallow /catalogsearch to your robots.txt and if any are indexed you can remove the directory in Webmaster Tools > Google Index > Remove URLs > Reason: Remove Directory. This from Google - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-results-in-search-results/
If your site has any other parameters not in that directory you can add them in Webmaster Tools > Crawl > URL Parameters > Let Googlebot Decide. Google will understand they are not the main URLs and treat them accordingly.
As a side issue with your search results it would be a good idea to analyse them in Analytics. You might find you have a trend, maybe something searched for or not the perfect match for the returned result, where you can create new more targeted content.
-
I'm not sure this is the right approach. The catalog search is based on the search box on the website. The query parameter can be anything the customer enters. Are you suggesting that the backend code be modified to always return the in every result?
And why that page because that URL just redirects to the home page because there is no query parameter provided for the search.
In terms o losing link equity, how much equity do they have it they are duplicate content?
-
Hi Jeremy.
Yours is a common problem. The best way to deal with it is, as Wesley mentions, by putting canonical tags on all the duplicate pages - the one you want indexed and to show up in search results AND all the others that you can arrive at via catalog search or any other means of navigation.
Michael's suggestion will prevent the duplicate pages from getting indexed by Google. Unfortunately you lose any link equity going that route, so I'd suggest starting with canonical tags first.
-
To back up the detail Wesley gave you, you can also add URL parameters in Google Webmaster Tools
-
You could add a canonical tag to link to the default page. This way Google will know that it should only index that.
The code for this would be:This should be placed in the section of your HTML code.
Some more resources on the subject:
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
-
Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?
Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Bigcommerce & Blog Tags causing Duplicate Content?
Curious why moz would pick up our blog tags as causing duplicate content, when each blog has a rel canonical tag pointing to either the blog post itself and on the tag pages points to the blog as a whole. Kinda want to get rid of the tags in general now, but also feel they can add some extra value to UX later on when we have many more blog posts. Curious if anyone knows a way around this or even a best solution practice when faced with such odd issues? I can see why the duplicate content would happen, but when grouping content into categories?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Concerns of Duplicative Content on Purchased Site
Recently I purchased a site of 50+ DA (oldsite.com) that had been offline/404 for 9-12 months from the previous owner. The purchase included the domain and the content previously hosted on the domain. The backlink profile is 100% contextual and pristine. Upon purchasing the domain, I did the following: Rehosted the old site and content that had been down for 9-12 months on oldsite.com Allowed a week or two for indexation on oldsite.com Hosted the old content on my newsite.com and then performed 100+ contextual 301 redirects from the oldsite.com to newsite.com using direct and wild card htaccess rules Issued a Press Release declaring the acquisition of oldsite.com for newsite.com Performed a site "Change of Name" in Google from oldsite.com to newsite.com Performed a site "Site Move" in Bing/Yahoo from oldsite.com to newsite.com It's been close to a month and while organic traffic is growing gradually, it's not what I would expect from a domain with 700+ referring contextual domains. My current concern is around original attribution of content on oldsite.com shifting to scraper sites during the year or so that it was offline. For Example: Oldsite.com has full attribution prior to going offline Scraper sites scan site and repost content elsewhere (effort unsuccessful at time because google know original attribution) Oldsite.com goes offline Scraper sites continue hosting content Google loses consumer facing cache from oldsite.com (and potentially loses original attribution of content) Google reassigns original attribution to a scraper site Oldsite.com is hosted again and Google no longer remembers it's original attribution and thinks content is stolen Google then silently punished Oldsite.com and Newsite.com (which it is redirected to) QUESTIONS Does this sequence have any merit? Does Google keep track of original attribution after the content ceases to exist in Google's search cache? Are there any tools or ways to tell if you're being punished for content being posted else on the web even if you originally had attribution? Unrelated: Are there any other steps that are recommend for a Change of site as described above.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PetSite0 -
Duplicate content - Images & Attachments
I have been looking a GWT HTML improvements on our new site and I am scratching my head on how to stop some elements of the website showing up as duplicates for Meta Descriptions and Titles. For example the blog area: <a id="zip_0-anchor" class="zippedsection_title"></a>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CocoonfxmediaThis blog is full of information and resources for you to implement; get more traffic, more leads an
/blog/
/blog/page/2/
/blog/page/3/
/blog/page/4/
/blog/page/6/
/blog/page/9/The page has rel canonicals on them (using Yoast Wordpress SEO) and I can't see away of stopping the duplicate content. Can anyone suggest how to combat this? or is there nothing to worry about?
0 -
Webmaster Tools Content Keywords & Meta Tagging
In Webmaster tools , Content keywords give an indication of what Google thinks a site is about. This site is a health site ( online shopping - health supplements ) - but one of the terms it thinks the site is about is "Dollar" . I'm guessing this is because on every page there is Currency Selection from multiple currencies. How do I tell Google that this part of the page is nothing to do with what my site is about? Thanks for your reply in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Duplicate on page content - Product descriptions - Should I Meta NOINDEX?
Hi, Our e-commerce store has a lot of product descriptions duplicated - Some of them are default manufacturer descriptions, some are descriptions because the colour of the product varies - so essentially the same product, just different colour. It is going to take a lot of man hours to get the unique content in place - would a Meta No INDEX on the dupe pages be ok for the moment and then I can lift that once we have unique content in place? I can't 301 or canonicalize these pages, as they are actually individual products in their own right, just dupe descriptions. Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20101 -
Duplicate content on the same page--is this an issue?
We are transitioning to responsive design and some of our pages will not scale properly, so we were thinking of adding the same content twice to the same URL (one would be simple text -- for mobile and the other would include the images, etc for the desktop version), and content would change based on size of the screen. I'm not looking for another technical solution (I know google specifies that you can dynamically serve different content based on user agent)--I am wondering if any one knows if having the same exact content appear twice on the same URL will cause a problem with SEO (any historical tests or experience would be great). Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Duplicate content from development website
Hi all - I've been trawling for duplicate content and then I stumbled across a development URL, set up by a previous web developer, which nearly mirrors current site (few content and structure changes since then, but otherwise it's all virtually the same). The developer didn't take it down when the site was launched. I'm guessing the best thing to do is tell him to take down the development URL (which is specific to the pizza joint btw, immediately. Is there anything else I should ask him to do? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0