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Does the indexing of URLs with filter parameters harm in SEO?

by imshazia
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello everyone, I have an eCommerce website, it has thousand of URLs in Google Index with parameters used for filtering products, these pages showing same title and description as parent category page, here are some examples-

www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000
www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?theme=247
www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?size=240

Will such urls hurt the organic rankings in Google? If yes, what is the solution?
#ecommerce #filter #harm #indexing #parameters #seo #urls
  • Profile picture of the author Zenoth
    Originally Posted by imshazia View Post

    Hello everyone, I have an eCommerce website, it has thousand of URLs in Google Index with parameters used for filtering products, these pages showing same title and description as parent category page, here are some examples-

    www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000
    www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?theme=247
    www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?size=240

    Will such urls hurt the organic rankings in Google? If yes, what is the solution?
    If category.html page displays unique content for each URL parameter, I think there should be no problem.
    However, if the page titles or descriptions are same for all of category pages with parameters, then search engines can see them as duplicate content.
    The solution may be to add a canonical tag to the pages with parameters.

    For example:

    For www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 you can add a HTML code inside <head></head> tags that looks like this:

    HTML Code:
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html" />
    This code will tell search engines that www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 page should be treated as though it was a copy of http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html
    You should add this code for all other pages with parameters.
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    • Profile picture of the author imshazia
      Originally Posted by Zenoth View Post

      If category.html page displays unique content for each URL parameter, I think there should be no problem.
      However, if the page titles or descriptions are same for all of category pages with parameters, then search engines can see them as duplicate content.
      The solution may be to add a canonical tag to the pages with parameters.

      For example:

      For www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 you can add a HTML code inside <head></head> tags that looks like this:

      HTML Code:
      <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html" />
      This code will tell search engines that www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 page should be treated as though it was a copy of http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html
      You should add this code for all other pages with parameters.
      I don't think every filtered page displays completely unique content. But pages may have different products for different parameters (but meta tags are same in SERP for all filter pages as it is in parent category page). Would you recommend me tp deindex such pages either through Google WMT or robots.txt?
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      • Profile picture of the author Zenoth
        Originally Posted by imshazia View Post

        I don't think every filtered page displays completely unique content. But pages may have different products for different parameters (but meta tags are same in SERP for all filter pages as it is in parent category page). Would you recommend me tp deindex such pages either through Google WMT or robots.txt?
        There's no need to remove each indexed page. Just follow what I said in the post above and it should be enough.
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    • Profile picture of the author imshazia
      Originally Posted by Zenoth View Post

      If category.html page displays unique content for each URL parameter, I think there should be no problem.
      However, if the page titles or descriptions are same for all of category pages with parameters, then search engines can see them as duplicate content.
      The solution may be to add a canonical tag to the pages with parameters.

      For example:

      For www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 you can add a HTML code inside <head></head> tags that looks like this:

      HTML Code:
      <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html" />
      This code will tell search engines that www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html?price=300000 page should be treated as though it was a copy of http://www.EcommerceSite.com/Category.html
      You should add this code for all other pages with parameters.
      Don't you think it will be a tedious task to add canonical tag to thousands of such pages. I don't have the control panel of website, so I don't even know whether these dynamically generated parameter pages physically exist somewhere on hosting or not. Can you tell me whether such pages physically exist or not?
      What about the suggestion given by ibtech "just add canonical tag on category page and I'm sure your filtered pages will automatically use canonical tag which will resolve any duplicate page issue." will it be enough?
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  • Profile picture of the author bodmov
    If you can get rid of these, it will be better.
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  • Profile picture of the author ibtech
    There is no need to block filtered pages, just add canonical tag on category page and I'm sure your filtered pages will automatically use canonical tag which will resolve any duplicate page issue.
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    • Profile picture of the author imshazia
      Originally Posted by ibtech View Post

      There is no need to block filtered pages, just add canonical tag on category page and I'm sure your filtered pages will automatically use canonical tag which will resolve any duplicate page issue.
      If I add canonical tag to only main category pages, will the already indexed parameter pages take canonical tag automatically?
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