How to deal with parameter URLs as primary internal links and not canonicals? Weird situation inside...

[Alces]

So I have a weird situation, and I was hoping someone could help. This is for an ecommerce site.

1. Parameters are used to tie Product Detail Pages (PDP) to individual categories. This is represented in the breadcrumbs for the page and the use of a categoryid. One product can thus be included in multiple categories.

2. All of these PDPs have a canonical that does not include the parameter / categoryid.

3. With very few exceptions, the canonical URL for the PDPs are not linked to. Instead, the parameter URL is to tie it to a specific category.  This is done primarily for the sake of breadcrumbs it seems.

One of the big issues we've been having is the canonical URLs not being indexed for a lot of the products. In some instances, the canonicals _are _indexed alongside parameters, or just parameter URLs are indexed. It's all very...mixed up, I suppose.

My theory is that the majority of canonical URLs not being linked to anywhere on the site is forcing Google to put preference on the internal link instead. My problem?

**I have no idea what to recommend to the client (who will not change the parameter setup). **

One of our Technical SEOs recommended we "Use cookies instead of parameters to assign breadcrumbs based on how the PDP is accessed." I have no experience this.

So....yeah. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[willcritchlow]

Hmmm. This is tricky. Some ideas - hope something here is helpful:

1. Have you tried "inspect URL" in search console? That has information about canonical selections these days and may be helpful
2. Are the canonical URLs (and no parameter URLs) included in the XML sitemap? Might be worth trying cleaning that up if there is any confusion
3. Cookies could work - but it sounds to me as though that would go against your client preferences as the non-cookie version would have to remove / work without parameters I think - which you indicated they weren't prepared to do
4. Failing all of that, what about picking one category to be the primary category for each product and canonicalising to that (which will have internal links) instead of to the version with no parameters? Could that work? Might nudge towards the canonical being respected

[effectdigital]

Sorry to hear that, it does indeed sound like an awful situation to be trapped in! I don't really see much optimism :') except if they will understand anything you do is more damage control - and that still does have value

[Alces]

Yuuuuuuuuuuup. And yeah, I'm aware that the canonical is just a directive, but they were sold on this setup before my time. So I'm basically left trying to fix an issue that simply cannot be fixed without making drastic changes. The site was built only recently - it's been live for a couple months, and this method of internal linking, categorization, etc was the recommendation from the previous SEOs. Just a crappy situation through and through.

[effectdigital]

Unfortunately I think that this setup sounds too complex and archaic to really give any recommendations without seeing an example of each URL type and what you want to happen with it (and why)

I know you're trying your best to explain the situation, but the archaic nature and complexity of what you are explaining mean that, without an actual example - no one is really likely to interpret the question correctly. It's not a bad question, it's not your fault -  it's clearly just a complicated situation

You should know that the canonical directive is 'just a directive' and not an order to Google. If Google feels that listing another, different URL is more beneficial for its users then it will do that and ignore you. Even if you use canonical tags successfully, there is NEVER ANY GUARANTEE that the canonical URL will inherit all rankings from the previously ranking URL (so quite often, people shoot themselves in the foot by over-using canonical tags. They get 10% more control but lose 30% rankings, bad trade - think bigger)

It sounds like the architecture of the site is so archaic that in reality, any recommendations will "help the site to lose the least rankings over time until it is replaced", so it's more of a damage limiting exercise until the client decides to be reasonable