Thanks for the response, Eric.

My research suggested the same plan of attack: 1) fixing the canonical tags and 2) Google Search Console URL Parameters. It's helpful to get your confirmation.

My best guess is that the parameters you've cited above are not needed for every URL. I agree that this looks like something WebSphere Commerce probably controls. I'm a few organizational layers removed from whoever set this up for us. I'll try to track down where we can control that.

Thanks Peter!

Context

Our website has a large number of crawl issues stemming from duplicate page content (source: Moz).

According to an SEO firm which recently audited our website, some amount of these crawl issues are due to URL parameter usage. They have recommended that we "make sure every page has a Rel Canonical tag that points to the non-parameter version of that URL…parameters should never appear in Canonical tags."

Here's an example URL where we have parameters in our canonical tag...

http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/

rel="canonical" href="http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/?pageSize=0&pageSizeBottom=0" />

Our website runs on IBM WebSphere v 7.

Questions

1. Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL?
2. What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters?
3. Any advice for correcting this?

Thanks for any help!

Hey TheDude -

For my rudimentary test I recorded 28 days worth of WMT data (impressions, clicks, CTR, avg pos.) before the capitalization change, then measured 28 days worth of data after the change and measured the difference.

My results were inconclusive, but in favor of title casing. My company's SEO traffic is seasonal, so clicks and CTR have been on the rise independent of the capitalization changes. This makes it difficult to isolate the impact of my changes.

If I were to do it again, I would identify N eligible for change pages with comparable stats and then divide them 50/50 into test and control groups. Then I'd make the changes to the test group and measure. The test group lift vs. control group would have given a clearer picture of the impact of the capitalization change.

Very cool, John. Thank you for running the test.

What I'm seeing in the results is that all of the title case title tags are projected to outperform the lowercase title tag I selected as the baseline. Granted, your software warns "Not enough responses & care should be taken when using the predictions", the outcome supports my hypothesis that title case would perform better than all lower case.

From here, I intend to run some before & after tests on our title tags to see if I can measure differences in performance.

Thanks again!

That's correct!

Great, John. Thank you.

Assumed URL: http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/girls-costumes/

8 title tags:

I'm most interested in measuring the difference between all lower case and title case, so I've included 2 versions of 4 title tags:

1. girls halloween costumes | wishcraft by chasing fireflies
2. Girls Halloween Costumes | Wishcraft by Chasing Fireflies
3. girls costumes | costume & dress-up | chasing fireflies
4. Girls Costumes | Costume & Dress-Up | Chasing Fireflies
5. girls costumes - girls halloween costumes
6. Girls Costumes - Girls Halloween Costumes
7. girls costumes for halloween | chasing fireflies
8. Girls Costumes for Halloween | Chasing Fireflies

8 descriptions (full disclosure: I've taken these from competitors' pages on SERPs. I assume that your test does not involve publishing any this. Please let me know if I'm wrong and need to provide original descriptions.):

1. Magical dress-up and Halloween costumes designed for her and her doll, from Chasing Fireflies.
2. Your little girl deserves to look her best this Halloween. Find everything you need for girls costumes & kids Halloween accessories at Chasing Fireflies!
3. Cute Halloween costumes for girls at affordable prices. Shop for Disney girls costumes, animal-themed girls Halloween costumes, and more.
4. Chasing Fireflies has the best selection of girls' Halloween costumes. You can find costumes for girls so she can look adorable this Halloween.
5. The best, most popular Halloween costumes for girls are available at Chasing Fireflies. Everything from adorable classics to popular movie characters.
6. Chasing Fireflies has girls' Halloween costumes. You can find adorable costumes for girls so they look as sweet as candy this Halloween.
7. Girls Halloween costumes at the very best prices. Shop for girls Frozen costumes, princess costumes, girls Halloween costumes and more.
8. Find popular girls Halloween costumes at Chasing Fireflies. Shop a huge selection of girls Halloween costumes featuring their favorite characters.

Let me know if this suits your needs.

Cheers!

Can you help me understand what you're proposing John?

You'd like for me to provide you 8 lower case title tag & description pairs from our website and you will test them against their title case counterparts? How would you do this? Are you offering to sell me Predikkta services or are you offering me a trial of some variety?

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, John.

I'm picking up what you're laying down about there not being rules.

That you said Hire Experienced Professionals | Thumbtack looks more professional and therefore might earn a higher CTR supports my hypothesis. To your point - such a change would need to be tested. In our case, most of current title tags are well within the 512px width limit, so truncation is not a big concern should we decide to switch from lower case to title case.

Thanks Richard - I'm bookmarking the snippet optimizer!

Thanks for your response, John!

Re: rankings - I was thinking that if we were hurting CTR by using all lowercase that this in turn could harm our rankings since Moz's 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors suggests that CTR is a ranking factor. Do you disagree with this?

My company made a branding decision to use lowercase for all of our title tags. This, of course, means that our titles on SERPs are all lower case. Overwhelmingly, it seems that websites use title case. This makes me wonder if we're shooting ourselves in the foot.

Does using lower case titles negatively impact our rankings and/or click through rates? Is there any data out there suggesting that title case has a better click through rate than lower case?

Thanks for reading!