Parameter Strings & Duplicate Page Content

[garrettkite]

I'm managing a site that has thousands of pages due to all of the dynamic parameter strings that are being generated. It's a real estate listing site that allows people to create a listing, and is generating lots of new listings everyday. The Moz crawl report is continually flagging A LOT (25k+) of the site pages for duplicate content due to all of these parameter string URLs.

Example: sitename.com/listings & sitename.com/listings/?addr=street name

Do I really need to do anything about those pages? I have researched the topic quite a bit, but can't seem to find anything too concrete as to what the best course of action is. My original thinking was to add the rel=canonical tag to each of the main URLs that have parameters attached. I have also read that you can bypass that by telling Google what parameters to ignore in Webmaster tools.

We want these listings to show up in search results, though, so I don't know if either of these options is ideal, since each would cause the listing pages (pages with parameter strings) to stop being indexed, right? Which is why I'm wondering if doing nothing at all will hurt the site?

I should also mention that I originally recommend the rel=canonical option to the web developer, who has pushed back in saying that "search engines ignore parameter strings." Naturally, he doesn't want the extra work load of setting up the canonical tags, which I can understand, but I want to make sure I'm both giving him the most feasible option for implementation as well as the best option to fix the issues.

[Linda-Vassily]

You started by saying the problem is duplicate content. Are those pages with the various parameter strings basically duplicate content? Because if they are, no matter what you do you will probably not get them all to rank; the URL is not your main problem in that case. (Though you still should do something about those parameter strings.)

[garrettkite]

Thanks for the quick response, EGOL. Very helpful.

I'm not at all familiar with your 3rd suggestion in your response. If we were to strip them off at the server level, what would that actually look like? Both in terms of the code that we need to use in .htaccess as well as the resulting change to the URL?

Would that affect the pages and their ability to be indexed? Any potential negative SEO effects from doing this?

Just trying to make sure it's what we need and figure out the best way to relay this to the web developer. Thanks!

[EGOL]

Do I really need to do anything about those pages?

**In my opinion, YES, absolutely.  ** Allowing lots of parameters to persist on your site increases crawling require, dilutes the power to your pages, I believe that your site's rankings will decline over time if these parameters are not killed.

There are three methods to handle it.... redirect, settings in webmaster tools and canonical.  These three methods are not equivalent and each works in a very different way.

1. The parameters control in Google Webmaster Tools is unreliable.  It did not work for me.  And, it does not work for any other search engine.  Find a different solution, is what I recommend.

2. Using rel=canonical relies on Google to obey it.  From my experience it works well at present time.  But we know that Google says how they are going to do things and then changes their mind without tellin' anybody.   I would not rely on this.

3. If you really want to control these parameters, use htaccess to strip them off at the server level.  That is doing it where you totally control it and not relying on what anybody says that they are going to do.  Take control.

The only reservation about #3 is that you might need parameters for on-site search or category page sorting on your own site.  These can be excluded from being stripped in your htaccess file.

Don't allow search engines to do anything for you that you can do for yourself.  They can screw it up or quit doing it at any time and not say anything about it.