Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    8
    2658
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • CommercePundit
      CommercePundit last edited by

      Today, I was reading help article for URL parameters by Google.

      http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1235687

      I come to know that, Google is giving value to URLs which ave parameters that change or determine the content of a page. There are too many pages in my website with similar value for Name, Price and Number of product. But, I have restricted all pages by Robots.txt with following syntax.

      URLs:
      http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name
      http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=price
      http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100

      Syntax in Robots.txt
      Disallow: /?dir=
      Disallow: /
      ?p=
      Disallow: /*?limit=

      Now, I am confuse. Which is best solution to get maximum benefits in SEO?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanMosley
        AlanMosley @CommercePundit last edited by

        No i dont think so, even if the thought they were duplicate, then they will pick one as the original. so one of them will rank.

        If you are still concerned use tha canonicall tag, rather them remove them from index

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • CommercePundit
          CommercePundit @CommercePundit last edited by

          Your concern is that, Google will crawl following all pages. If I will not do any thing with those pages. Right?

          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps

          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100&p=2

          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=60&p=2

          http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=40&p=2

          Now, my website is on 3rd page of Google for Discount Table Lamps keyword.

          I have fear that, If Google will crawl multiple pages with duplicate Title tag so it may mesh up current ranking for Discount Table Lamps keyword.

          What you think about it?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AlanMosley
            AlanMosley @CommercePundit last edited by

            If the content is different, then dont do anything, but if it is duplicate us ethe canonical tag.

            The meta tages are not a problem, you are not going to get flaged for that, it would be better if you could make them unique but this is a very small problem

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • CommercePundit
              CommercePundit @CommercePundit last edited by

              Will it really work? Because, both page have different content.

              http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps have 100 products and

              http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100&p=2 have different + unique 100 products.

              One another problem is regarding Meta info. Both page have same Meta info. If Google will index both pages so it may create warning message for duplicate Meta info across too many pages.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • AlanMosley
                AlanMosley @CommercePundit last edited by

                Thats the advice i gave you, put a canonical tag in the page

                rel="canonical" href="http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps"/>

                if google finds http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name

                it will know it5 is mean to be http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • CommercePundit
                  CommercePundit @AlanMosley last edited by

                  Honestly, I did not getting it. Because, I have read one help article about URL parameters by Google.

                  It shows me some different thing. Google suggested to use Google webmaster tools. But, I have restricted all dynamic pages by robots.txt.

                  So, I want to know best practice which may help me to gain my crawling and no of indexed pages.

                  AlanMosley CommercePundit 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • AlanMosley
                    AlanMosley last edited by

                    I would simplty put a rel canonical in the page point ing to the true URL. so SE's will see them as one page.

                    It is better to use cononical for the reasons in the google doc you posted, goolge may not pick the nest url to be the canonical, you should make that choice for them

                    CommercePundit 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • Fubra

                      410 or 301 after URL update?

                      Hi there, A site i'm working on atm has a thousand "not found" errors on google console (of course, I'm sure there are thousands more it's not showing us!). The issue is a lot of them seem to come from a URL change. Damage has been done, the URLs have been changed and I can't stop that... but as you can imagine, i'm keen to fix as many as humanly possible. I don't want to go mad with 301s - but for external links in, this seems like the best solution? On the other hand, Google is reading internal links that simply aren't there anymore. Is it better to hunt down the new page and 301-it anyway? OR should I 410 and grit my teeth while google crawls and recrawls it, warning me that this page really doesn't exist? Essentially I guess I'm asking, how many 301s are too many and will affect our DA? And what's the best solution for dealing with mass 404 errors - many of which aren't attached or linked to from any other pages anymore? Thanks for any insights 🙂

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra
                      0
                    • Jonathan.Smith

                      Should I include URLs that are 301'd or only include 200 status URLs in my sitemap.xml?

                      I'm not sure if I should be including old URLs (content) that are being redirected (301) to new URLs (content) in my sitemap.xml. Does anyone know if it is best to include or leave out 301ed URLs in a xml sitemap?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonathan.Smith
                      0
                    • jmorehouse

                      Should I disallow all URL query strings/parameters in Robots.txt?

                      Webmaster Tools correctly identifies the query strings/parameters used in my URLs, but still reports duplicate title tags and meta descriptions for the original URL and the versions with parameters. For example, Webmaster Tools would report duplicates for the following URLs, despite it correctly identifying the "cat_id" and "kw" parameters: /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM
                      /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?cat_id=87
                      /Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?kw=CROM Additionally, theses pages have self-referential canonical tags, so I would think I'd be covered, but I recently read that another Mozzer saw a great improvement after disallowing all query/parameter URLs, despite Webmaster Tools not reporting any errors. As I see it, I have two options: Manually tell Google that these parameters have no effect on page content via the URL Parameters section in Webmaster Tools (in case Google is unable to automatically detect this, and I am being penalized as a result). Add "Disallow: *?" to hide all query/parameter URLs from Google. My concern here is that most backlinks include the parameters, and in some cases these parameter URLs outrank the original. Any thoughts?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jmorehouse
                      0
                    • friendoffood

                      Removing UpperCase URLs from Indexing

                      This search   -  site:www.qjamba.com/online-savings/automotix gives me this result from Google: Automotix online coupons and shopping - Qjamba
                      https://www.qjamba.com/online-savings/automotix
                      Online Coupons and Shopping Savings for Automotix. Coupon codes for online discounts on Vehicles & Parts products. and Google tells me there is another one, which is 'very simliar'.  When I click to see it I get: Automotix online coupons and shopping - Qjamba
                      https://www.qjamba.com/online-savings/Automotix
                      Online Coupons and Shopping Savings for Automotix. Coupon codes for online discounts on Vehicles & Parts products. This is because I recently changed my program to redirect all urls with uppercase in them to lower case, as it appears that all lowercase is strongly recommended. I assume that having 2 indexed urls for the same content dilutes link juice.  Can I safely remove all of my UpperCase indexed pages from Google without it affecting the indexing of the lower case urls?  And if, so what is the best way -- there are thousands.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood
                      0
                    • Jay328

                      Weird 404 URL Problem - domain name being placed at end of urls

                      Hey there. For some reason when doing crawl tests I'm finding pages with the domain name being tacked on the end and causing 404 errors. 
                      For example:  http://domainname.com/page-name/http://domainname.com This is happening to all pages, posts and even category type 1. Site is in Wordpress
                      2. Using Yoast SEO plugin Any suggestions? Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jay328
                      0
                    • RoxBrock

                      Does having a ? on the end of your URL affect your SEO?

                      I have some redirects that were done with at "?" at the end of the URL to include google coding (i.e. you click on an adwords link and the google coding follows the redirected link). When there is not coding to follow the link just appears as "filename.html?". Will that affect us negatively SEO-wise? Thank you.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RoxBrock
                      1
                    • Seamoose

                      301 Redirection and apostrophes in URLs

                      Hi I am experiencing trouble getting any redirects with apostrophes in the URLs to 301 redirect in order to eliminate 404 errors. I have tried replacing the instance of the apostrophe in the source URL field to %27 and variations of this but to no avail. The site is a wordpress site (the old URLS are legacies from the old Business Catalyst site) and I am using the redirection plug in. I have gone into some detail with a helpful soul here http://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-deal-with-apostrophes-in-source-url but unfortunately to no result. If anyone has any idea how to solve this puzzle I would be grateful for the help. Example: http://www.tesselaars.com/blog/Inside_Flowers/post/Online_Marketing_for_Florists_Part_1%E2%80%93_A_Website_You_Won%27t_Regret/

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Seamoose
                      0
                    • JohnPeters

                      Strange URLs, how do I fix this?

                      I've just check Majestic and have seen around 50 links coming from one of my other sites. The links all look like this: http://www.dwww.mysite.com
                      http://www.eee.mysite.com
                      http://www.w.mysite.com The site these links are coming from is a html site. Any ideas whats going on or a way to get rid of these urls? When I visit the strange URLs such as http://www.dwww.mysite.com, it shows the home page of http://www.mysite.com. Is there a way to redirect anything like this back to the home page?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy