150+ Pages of URL Parameters - Mass Duplicate Content Issue?
-
Hi we run a large e-commerce site and while doing some checking through GWT we came across these URL parameters and are now wondering if we have a duplicate content issue.
If so, we are wodnering what is the best way to fix them, is this a task with GWT or a Rel:Canonical task?
Many of the urls are driven from the filters in our category pages and are coming up like this: page04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3F (See the image for more).
Does anyone know if these links are duplicate content and if so how should we handle them?
Richard
-
Hi Richard
Honestly, I really don't know. A lot of me wants to say that: "Surely Google will know this isn't deliberate and manipulative duplicate content". You could take a couple of those URLs and do a Google search with them. Do:
site:www.example.com/page?query1
info:www.example.com/page?query1With the first result, if your URL hasn't been indexed, that's a good thing. For the second result, if the info search returns the original URL (without the parameters), that's also good, as it means Google will be counting the one with parameters as just a variation and to be ignored. However, if it's returning the result with the parameters, that would indicate that the web crawler is indexing the version with parameters and treating it as a separate URL - raising the duplicate content risk. Silly Google!
Regardless of those results, I would look to implement the canonical tag anyway as it takes any guesswork out of the equation. And ultimately, a lot of this work with Google is guesswork as we can't see the algorithm - although it's an informed guess due to experience etc.
-
Thanks for this Tom, great answer!
So am I right in thinking that each of these URL Parameters are very likely being classed as duplicate content?
-
Along with this great answer from Tom, I just wanted to add that Google does offer a resource on duplicate content as well with tips.
Hope this helps as well - good luck!
-
Hi Richard
It is something you should address ASAP. While I believe that Google is a lot better at recognising 'accidental' duplicate content - IE URLs with URL parameters - and distinguishing it from 'deliberate' duplicate content - just outright stealing someone's work or trying to rank several pages for multiple terms - that is only my assumption. To be completely sure, let's stop any chance of Google penalising these pages.
I think, in this instance, a rel canonical tag should do the trick. You can read more on the tag here in Moz's guide. Basically, on the page(s) where you're having this problem add a "self-referring" canonical tag. For example, if the page was http://www.example.com/blue-widgets/, the tag would be:
Make sure that, when you implement this, the pages that are generated with the URL parameters aren't also creating canonical tags like:
They should all have the original canonical tag.
What this will do is tell Google that "If you see any pages with this tag, we're aware that they might be duplicate, but please only count and index the http://www.example.com/blue-widgets/". It works just like a 301 redirect in that sense.
I think this would be the simplest solution for you to implement. If you're having problems, there would be a way of blocking access to pages with certain query/URL parameters by using the robots.txt file, but that could get quite messy.
Hope this helps
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
-
Possible duplicate content issue with my Blog and archive pages . Any help greatly appreciated
Dear Mozzers, I have been looking at my news section on my eCommerce site and I think I may have a duplicate content issue and wanted some advice on whether I do and if so , how best I handle this. http://www.website.co.uk/news
Technical SEO | | PeteC12
http://www.website.co.uk/news/page:1
http://www.website.co.uk/news/page:2
http://www.website.co.uk/news/page:3
http://www.website.co.uk/news/limit:9999 (This is show all) I also have the ability of showing articles by month : http://www.website.co.uk/news/archive/2015/04 (April)
http://www.website.co.uk/news/archive/2015/03 (March)
http://www.website.co.uk/news/archive/2015/02 (Feb)
http://www.website.co.uk/news/archive/2015/01 (Jan) I am wondering if there's a duplicate issue here or not given that I also articles by month as well and if so how best I handle this.? I already do pagination on my news pages (page 1 , page 2) by using rel=next and rel=Prev but I don't have an canconical or anything as yet. I enclose a couple of links if this would help and would appreciate if someone could take a browse. I have a View All link on my homepage for for all news items - http://goo.gl/JPPIvQ I which have a different urls - March 2015 Articles - http://goo.gl/0O1wYD and April 2015 articles - http://goo.gl/GdW2oK On another note, These articles are also linked to from the relevant category landing pages on my website to help with SEO. I have not used H tags on the article links in my landing pages , just displaying the weblink back to the news article.I've done this to try and improve the PR and rankings of my landing pages. Just wondered if anyone has any comments as to whether thats a good or bad idea and whether I could improve it in any way - An example is here (scroll down the page to the pressure washing guides) - http://goo.gl/nnRE49 Thanks Pete0 -
Duplicate Content Mystery
Hi Moz community! I have an ongoing duplicate mystery going on here and I'm hoping someone here can answer my question. We have an Ecommerce site that has a variety of product pages and category pages. There are Rel canonicals in place, along with parameters in GWT, and there are also URL rewrites. Here are some scenarios, maybe you can give insight as to what’s exactly going on and how to fix it. All the duplicates look to be coming from category pages specifically. For example:
Technical SEO | | Ecom-Team-Access
This link re-writes: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html?cat=407&color=152&price=20- To: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html The rel canonical tag looks like this: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html" /> The CONTENT is different, but the URLs are the same. It thinks that the product category view is the same as the all products view, even though there is a canonical in there telling it which one is the original. Some of them don’t have anything to do with each other. Take a look: Link identified as duplicate: http://www.incipio.com/cases/smartphone-cases/htc-smartphone-cases/htc-windows-phone-8x-cases.html?color=27&price=20- Link this is a duplicate of: http://www.incipio.com/cases/macbook-cases/macbook-pro-13in-cases.html Any idea as to what could be happening here?0 -
Best way to deal with over 1000 pages of duplicate content?
Hi Using the moz tools i have over a 1000 pages of duplicate content. Which is a bit of an issue! 95% of the issues arise from our news and news archive as its been going for sometime now. We upload around 5 full articles a day. The articles have a standalone page but can only be reached by a master archive. The master archive sits in a top level section of the site and shows snippets of the articles, which if a user clicks on them takes them to the full page article. When a news article is added the snippets moves onto the next page, and move through the page as new articles are added. The problem is that the stand alone articles can only be reached via the snippet on the master page and Google is stating this is duplicate content as the snippet is a duplicate of the article. What is the best way to solve this issue? From what i have read using a 'Meta NoIndex' seems to be the answer (not that i know what that is). from what i have read you can only use a canonical tag on a page by page basis so that going to take to long. Thanks Ben
Technical SEO | | benjmoz0 -
Moz Crawl Diagnostic shows lots of duplicate content issues
Hi my client's website uses URL with www and without www. In page/title both website shows up. The one with www has page authority of 51 and the one without 45. In Moz diagnostic I can see that the website shows over 200 duplicate content which are not found in , e.g. Webmaster. When I check each page and add/remove www then the website shows the same content for both www and no www. It is not redirect - in search tab it actually shows www and then if you use no www it doesn't show www. Is the www issue to blame? or could it be something else? and what do I do since both www URL and no-www URL have high authority, just set up redirect from lower authority URL to higher authority URL?
Technical SEO | | GardenPet0 -
Fixing Duplicate Pages Titles/Content
I have a DNN site, which I created friendly URL's for; however, the creation of the friendly URL's then created duplicate page content and titles. I was able to fix all but two URL's with rel="canonical" links. BUT The two that are giving me the most issues are pointing to my homepage. When I added the rel = "canonical" link the page then becomes not indexable. And for whatever reason, I can't add a 301 redirect to the homepage because it then gives me "can't display webpage" error message. I am new to SEO and to DNN, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | VeronicaCFowler0 -
Issue: Duplicate Page Content
Hi All, I am getting warnings about duplicate page content. The pages are normally 'tag' pages. I have some blog posts tagged with multiple 'tags'. Does it really affect my site?. I am using wordpress and Yoast SEO plugin. Thanks
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
Duplicate content issue index.html vs non index.html
Hi I have an issue. In my client's profile, I found that the "index.html" are mostly authoritative than non "index.html", and I found that www. version is more authoritative than non www. The problem is that I find the opposite situation where non "index.html" are more authoritative than "index.html" or non www more authoritative than www. My logic would tell me to still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html". Am I right? and in the case I find the opposite happening, does it matter if I still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html"? The same question for www vs non www versions? Thank you
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Duplicate Page Content and Title for product pages. Is there a way to fix it?
We we're doing pretty good with our SEO, until we added product listing pages. The errors are mostly Duplicate Page Content/Title. e.g. Title: Masterpet | New Zealand Products MasterPet Product page1 MasterPet Product page2 Because the list of products are displayed on several pages, the crawler detects that these two URLs have the same title. From 0 Errors two weeks ago, to 14k+ errors. Is this something we could fix or bother fixing? Will our SERP ranking suffer because of this? Hoping someone could shed some light on this issue. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Peter.Huxley590