Can trackingcodes in your url be seen as duplicate content or break other rules?
-
I recently gave ReachLocal control to manage my Adwords campagne. I didnt want "Reverse Proxy" on so I decided to go with the Remote Conversion Tracking. So they track my website in every stap of the way. Therefor I had to place a Javascript on each page.
But what worries me are these kind of URL's I see appearing in my Analytics account:
/webpaginaname.html?scid+29903&cid=12343&tc+13012316371028544&rl_key=32850e0a2d4499e02a711d0b969044d2&kw+8307565&pub_cr_id=16701148613&dynamic_proxy=1&primary_serv=www.website.com&rl_track_landing_pages=1
Could this be seen as duplicate content by Google? Or could it break any other rule you know of? Should I be worried?
Thanks a lot!
-
Hi Peter, that owuld mean that it is already indexed? Then it would be too late. I want to avoid a problems before they are there. I will PM the exact url.
-
Unfortunately, it can vary wildly - in some cases, those variants aren't really crawlable and/or Goolge will ignore them. In other cases, they can spin out a lot of duplicates. It's hard to speak to the crawlability without digging into the site, but you can test for indexed copies with a Google query like:
site:example.com inurl:scid
If you're seeing versions of these URLs indexed, then you may have a problem. GWT parameter handling is one option, but you could also use rel=canonical to point these variants back to the original page. It depends a bit on the situation and the scope.
-
I would handle this situation using the URL parameters screen within Google Webmaster Tools (shown in the attached screenshot). You can add URL parameters into the screen and set them to have 'no effect', which means when Google indexes your site, whatever URL parameters you're set to 'no effect' will be ignored by the spider.
-
For whatever reason, the URL you posted isn't formatting correctly for me to be able to see it all (it gets cut off), so I apologize if I can't speak directly to your example.
I will tell you from my personal experience that the way our place uses tracking codes has indeed created duplicate content.
Example: www.domain.com?cid=102is the same content as www.domain.com - so unless you prevent it before these URLs get indexed, you can have a mess to clean up. It comes up in Moz, Screaming Frog, etc.
-
With my experience with tracking URLs I have never had an instance of duplicate content. Although I was working solely with Google Analytics tracking URLs I think you should be safe.
To double check yourself you can run a report in Screaming Frog or check SEOMoz to see if you are getting any duplciate errors or show multiple versions of the same URL in your Screaming Frog report.
I have been using tracking URLs for close to two years now and that is how I always double check myself.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
If your brand name is the same as your URL should you include it in your homepage title tag?
I have always felt that having your brand name in every title tag though-out your website when your URL is your brand name is a waste. The space your brand name takes up could be used for more valuable non-branded keywords. If your brand name is unique, the URL (and content optimized with your brand name) should be enough to have you rank #1 across the board in search results. Though I beleive this I still think it is valuable placing your brand name in the back of your homepage title tag. Example: Full Service Advertising Agency | Your Brand Name Any thoughts why you should or shouldn't do this? Isn't this useful for branded purposes? Doe this help click-though rate? Don't you want your visitors to know our brand at first glance of search results? Another argument I had for doing it was if it weren't important, than why does every search site do this? http://moz.com/ http://searchengineland.com/ http://searchenginewatch.com/ http://www.seroundtable.com/ Thanks for the help!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | EvanC.EGC0 -
How can I find the redirect that removes special parameter from Adwords?
My main problem is Google Analytics doesn't show data from Google Adwords because a redirect in my site removes the special parameter(gclid) supplied by Adwords. Here's an email from one of Google Adwords representative: "When I reviewed your website, I found that a redirect set up on your site is removing auto-tagging information from your URLs. Auto-tagging automatically adds a parameter to the end of each of your AdWords destination URLs in order to identify visitors as AdWords referrals. The tag captures keyword, campaign, ad content information, and your ad's position when a user clicked it. The parameter used in auto-tagging is called "gclid." However, due to your website's redirect, the "gclid" parameter is being removed from the URL. As a result, Google Analytics is unable to properly track visitors reaching your site through AdWords. We suggest contacting your webmaster to append the "gclid" parameter to the redirected URL. If this isn't possible, you may want to consider removing the use of the redirect." Thanks in advance!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | esiow20130 -
Can using the Google Keywords tool and/or SEOmoz cause problems for my company's IP address?
I just started with a company a few weeks back, working on-site doing SEO work. I've been using SEOmoz as well as Google Adwords' Keywords tool. I just got a message from one of our reps saying that people at the office (and this is a huge office) have reported tons of CAPTCHAs being thrown up frequently. I told them I had been running searches with Google Keywords tool and SEOmoz, but would that really cause that much of a problem? Is there anything I can do in order to fix this, some keyword finders that won't get me in trouble, etc.?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SmokewagonKen0 -
How can I track the traffic source/keyword of form submissions?
I'm using Google Analytics on www.nhfinehomes.com and would like to track the source of leads submitted via form submissions. Ideally, I could track if the lead originated from organic search (and what keyword phrase), PPC, referral links, etc. Is this possible with Google Analytics and if so, can anyone point to some documentation on how to do this or better yet someone who can help me set this up? This site is running ASP.NET and uses JQuery so there is not a 'traditional' thank you page that I can reference. I'm not a programmer and do not pretend to be one! Thanks in advance. Link
Conversion Rate Optimization | | LinkMoser0 -
SEO For Personalized Content Pages
Hi, We are building a site that has content that personalizes based each visitor. This is being done to serve the most relevant content for conversion purposes and NOT for SEO purposes. So, there are many diferent versions of each page based on the visitor's location, device, browser, keyword-used, traffic source, etc. Obviously, we don't want this to appear like cloaking (it is genuine content personalization) and wondered how Google would view this? What is the safeguard for protecting the website from potential penalties? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Clickthroo0 -
Can Adwords campaigns affect other campaigns performance?
I understand that keywords and adgroups within a campaign can affect the performance of other keywords within that parent campaign. I was interested to understand whether campaigns in my account can affect one another. I have an adwords account with around 30 campaigns. Some are heavy hitters and others get minimal to 0 traffic. Will these low quality campaigns drive up the costs of my high end campaigns?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | peigenesis0 -
Good content but high bounce rate
Hi all, We run a website offering specialist turkey tours and gulet cruises. Our website holds a few information and recipes pages which are doing well in the engines and bring in alot of traffic. However these pages are crippling our bounce rate with bounces of about 80-90%. The time on site for these pages are above the websites average, but it seems that once the reader has finished with the information/ recipe, they bounce back to the Search engines. An example of one of our recipe pages can be found here: http://www.petersommer.com/turkey/turkish-food/pilav-rice/ We have thought about moving and redirecting these pages from our main site to a new website, but we are worried that it may effect our position in the SERP's. Can anybody offer any advice on this? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | petersommertravels0 -
Can Changing Meta Descriptions Negatively Impact SERP's?
I have just had a page start ranking well in key SERP's and I would like to change the meta description and add a price as we are extremely competative in that line. Could changing the meta description now a page is ranking negatively impact the SERP placing? Does anyone have any experience with this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | robertrRSwalters0