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Advice wanted on URL Parameters in WMT

by skiing
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello All,

I seek advice from many of you SEO wizards about URL parameters.

I keep getting duplicate content in the HTML improvements section of Google WMT. The duplicate content relates to pages which will display additional content based on your selction and add's the below string to the URL.

"?get_quote=1&id_accom=41&id_calendar_date=1" (there are a few other combos also)

This shows as duplicate page titles in the HTML improvement section.

How should I treat these URLs which also show up in the Configuration > URL Parameters in WMT. Should I

a) Select NO: Doesn't affect page content
b) Yes: changes, reorders or narrows page content
c) do nothing as there is no effect?
#advice #parameters #url #wanted #wmt
  • Profile picture of the author skiing
    Wow... no answers yet? can't be that technical a question can it?
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Hi skiing,

      You seem to be asking a question that can only be answered by someone that knows the specific details of how your website implements URL parameters. You should contact your webmaster/developer to get the proper answer.

      It sounds as though your developer created a web application that has disregarded how search engines use URLs within their index. That is an issue that should be addressed in the design of your web applications URL structure.

      The WMT gives you several options for how they will treat the problematic URL structure of your web application. You can request Google to ignore URL parameters and treat the page as the same page, or to treat each set of URL parameters as separate pages. However the best approach is to fix the problematic URL structure of your web application. If that isn't practical then you can fall back to the optional methods of treating your URLs, but that won't make the issue of duplicate content go away in most cases.
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  • Profile picture of the author paticom
    Copy content can make a big problem in SEO these days,if you want to to get rid of this you have to to find a seo specialis or to contact to the webmaster of your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Nguyen
    WMT is a funny beast so what you change in that doesn't always change in the Google index.

    There are 2 approaches, test one first before you move onto the other. What you described above doesn't sound like something that is worth indexing (although the content is different).

    1. Use WMT and select NO Doesn't affect page content and see what happens in the Google index.
    Use the site: search command for a rough guide. Has the indexed pages decreased (which is what you want)
    you can also be specific eg: Google:

    "domain.com/directory/?get_quote", has the numbers decreased. If yes then it's working. I would suggest giving it about 2 weeks to 1 month to make sure Google has fully crawled the pages and index. If no changes then move on to approach 2.

    2. Use robots.txt and tell the crawlers to not take notice of parameters:

    Disallow: *?get_quote=1 (I believe)

    Be careful with your robots.txt as you don't want to block the crawlers completely. Ask your web developer. He should know. But try step 1 first, if no luck, delete step 1 and try step 2.



    Originally Posted by skiing View Post

    Hello All,

    I seek advice from many of you SEO wizards about URL parameters.

    I keep getting duplicate content in the HTML improvements section of Google WMT. The duplicate content relates to pages which will display additional content based on your selction and add's the below string to the URL.

    "?get_quote=1&id_accom=41&id_calendar_date=1" (there are a few other combos also)

    This shows as duplicate page titles in the HTML improvement section.

    How should I treat these URLs which also show up in the Configuration > URL Parameters in WMT. Should I

    a) Select NO: Doesn't affect page content
    b) Yes: changes, reorders or narrows page content
    c) do nothing as there is no effect?
    Signature
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