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Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
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We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign.
We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle?
Thanks,
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Thanks for your quick response and your recommendations!
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Yes, use 301 instead of 302. 301 would pass any authority (i.e. any backlinks) that the vanity URL gains to the actual page whereas a 302 doesn't.
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Add a canonical URL to www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage so that search engines only index 1 version of the page
That should do it!
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