Duplicate Content with URL Parameters
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Moz is picking up a large quantity of duplicate content, consists mainly of URL parameters like ,pricehigh & ,pricelow etc (for page sorting).
Google has indexed a large number of the pages (not sure how many), not sure how many of them are ranking for search terms we need.
I have added the parameters into Google Webmaster tools And set to 'let google decide', However Google still sees it as duplicate content.
Is it a problem that we need to address? Or could it do more harm than good in trying to fix it?
Has anyone had any experience?
Thanks
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Think I've sussed it.
There is only about three or four main parameters so went to GA, Behaviour more > site content > all pages
Then did a search for part of the parameter name, sure enough you are right only a handful of visits.
Many Thanks
Is duplicate content of this sort actually a major issue? Especially considering Google should already know from Webmaster tools that these are parameter pages.
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If you know what URLs there are they probably have a common URL parameter that you could check for in your reports on landing pages. That would make it very easy to check the result for this with a couple clicks. If you want to go advanced than identify the URLs that have issues and run them through the Google Analytics Reporting API
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Err-umm, next question then how do I check 3700 pages+ that have this problem for traffic?
(Other than turning into a night owl and having to purchase a new mouse :-))
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'Easy', just check if these kind of pages are getting a lot of search traffic. Usually that isn't the case with filter/order pages, so if they drop in rankings it won't cost you search traffic.
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Canonical URL is a good point, what about pages that have already being indexed possibly for a search term?
Are these going to drop off the rankings?
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Have you considered using either a canonical URL or using robots.txt to prevent Googlebot from seeing these URLs in the first place?
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