Plus Signs (+) in URLs

6 replies
  • SEO
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Hi everyone,

I'm helping a friend of mine build a website in Shopify and I've found that it has limitations when creating pages that have multiple filters. I found this article: https://help.shopify.com/themes/cust...-tag-drop-down, which says you can create pages that have multiple filters like this one: domain.com//collections/women/dresses+black+between-40-and-60. "Women" is a collection while "dresses", "black", and "between-40-and-60" are tags.

My initial question is... Will pages be separately indexible by search engines when the URL has different tags separated by plus signs. Specifically, will the following all be treated as their own indexible pages:
domain.com//collections/women/dresses+black+between-40-and-60
domain.com//collections/women/dresses+red+between-40-and-60
domain.com//collections/women/dresses+red+over-60

Also, I noticed that one of her competitors has subcategory pages with standard URL structures like: domain.com//collections/women/dresses/black and they set up rel canonical tags for all subsubcategory pages pointing back to the main subcategory page. In this case, "domain.com//collections/women/dresses".

Her competitor's strategy seems to be working well as they rank in top positions for both subcategory and subsubcategory keyword phrases. So my second question is... Can this rel canonical strategy be used when the subsubcategory pages have plus signs in them?

And lastly, is there another way to achieve the above goals without plus signs in the URL? Are there any Shopify plugins other there that can make our lives easier and allow super flexible URLs?

I haven't been able to find any reliable resources to answer these questions so I really appreciate any help you can provide!

Thanks,
Steve
#signs #urls
  • Profile picture of the author Barryman
    The most useful is - _dress-black- or you can also use _ desert_black
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  • Profile picture of the author chrisjohn93
    The most use full is - (hyphen), use hyphen in your url..
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Steve327 View Post

    Hi everyone,

    I'm helping a friend of mine build a website in Shopify and I've found that it has limitations when creating pages that have multiple filters. I found this article: https://help.shopify.com/themes/cust...-tag-drop-down, which says you can create pages that have multiple filters like this one: domain.com//collections/women/dresses+black+between-40-and-60. "Women" is a collection while "dresses", "black", and "between-40-and-60" are tags.

    My initial question is... Will pages be separately indexible by search engines when the URL has different tags separated by plus signs. Specifically, will the following all be treated as their own indexible pages:
    domain.com//collections/women/dresses+black+between-40-and-60
    domain.com//collections/women/dresses+red+between-40-and-60
    domain.com//collections/women/dresses+red+over-60

    Also, I noticed that one of her competitors has subcategory pages with standard URL structures like: domain.com//collections/women/dresses/black and they set up rel canonical tags for all subsubcategory pages pointing back to the main subcategory page. In this case, "domain.com//collections/women/dresses".

    Her competitor's strategy seems to be working well as they rank in top positions for both subcategory and subsubcategory keyword phrases. So my second question is... Can this rel canonical strategy be used when the subsubcategory pages have plus signs in them?

    And lastly, is there another way to achieve the above goals without plus signs in the URL? Are there any Shopify plugins other there that can make our lives easier and allow super flexible URLs?

    I haven't been able to find any reliable resources to answer these questions so I really appreciate any help you can provide!

    Thanks,
    Steve

    The plus sign is an odd URL separator but I doubt it matters as far as ranking pages as long as Google is currently indexing and caching your pages/URLs.

    Do a Google search for the exact URL (example below), either it's indexed or it isn't, there's your proof If Google is ok with the URL.
    • site:domain.com/exact+internal+page+here
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve327
      Hi Yukon, thanks for the reply.

      Unfortunately, I can't search it yet because we haven't started building the site. I was hoping to figure this out before we decided to move forward with Shopify.

      The article that describes the process of applying multiple tags has a demo site example here: Collection Filtering Demo. When I search for specific URLs with plus signs in them, nothing is found. However, when I also search for pages like Shirts – Collection Filtering Demo, which are only collection / product tag with no plus sign, it doesn't come up either. So I'm thinking the demo site potentially just doesn't have all it's pages indexed on purpose.

      Any further thoughts would be super appreciated!

      Thanks,
      Steve


      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      The plus sign is an odd URL separator but I doubt it matters as far as ranking pages as long as Google is currently indexing and caching your pages/URLs.

      Do a Google search for the exact URL (example below), either it's indexed or it isn't, there's your proof If Google is ok with the URL.
      • site:domain.com/exact+internal+page+here
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10698918].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Steve327 View Post

        Hi Yukon, thanks for the reply.

        Unfortunately, I can't search it yet because we haven't started building the site. I was hoping to figure this out before we decided to move forward with Shopify.

        The article that describes the process of applying multiple tags has a demo site example here: Collection Filtering Demo. When I search for specific URLs with plus signs in them, nothing is found. However, when I also search for pages like Shirts – Collection Filtering Demo, which are only collection / product tag with no plus sign, it doesn't come up either. So I'm thinking the demo site potentially just doesn't have all it's pages indexed on purpose.

        Any further thoughts would be super appreciated!

        Thanks,
        Steve

        I'm sure they'll be indexed the same as a hyphen URL separator but a real + example would be helpful.
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