• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • 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. Partial Match or RegEx in Search Console's URL Parameters Tool?

        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.

        Partial Match or RegEx in Search Console's URL Parameters Tool?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        15
        3263
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Ria_
          Ria_ last edited by

          So I currently have approximately 1000 of these URLs indexed, when I only want roughly 100 of them.

          Let's say the URL is www.example.com/page.php?par1=ABC123=&par2=DEF456=&par3=GHI789=

          All the indexed URLs follow that same kinda format, but I only want to index the URLs that have a par1 of ABC (but that could be ABC123 or ABC456 or whatever). Using URL Parameters tool in Search Console, I can ask Googlebot to only crawl URLs with a specific value. But is there any way to get a partial match, using regex maybe?

          Am I wasting my time with Search Console, and should I just disallow any page.php without par1=ABC in robots.txt?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Andy.Drinkwater
            Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

            No problem 🙂

            Hope you get it sorted!

            -Andy

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Ria_
              Ria_ @DirkC last edited by

              Thank you! 😄

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Ria_
                Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                Haha, I think the train passed the station on that one. I would have realised eventually... XD

                Thanks for your help!

                Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • DirkC
                  DirkC last edited by

                  Don't forget that . & ? have a specific meaning within regex - if you want to use them for pattern matching you will have to escape them. Also be aware that not all bots are capable of interpreting regex in robots.txt - you might want to be more explicit on the user agent - only using regex for Google bot.

                  User-agent: Googlebot

                  #disallowing page.php and any parameters after it

                  disallow: /page.php

                  #but leaving anything that starts with par1=ABC

                  allow: page.php?par1=ABC

                  Dirk

                  Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Andy.Drinkwater
                    Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                    Ah sorry I missed that bit!

                    -Andy

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Andy.Drinkwater
                      Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                      Disallowing them would be my first priority really, before removing from index.

                      The trouble with this is that if you disallow first, Google won't be able to crawl the page to act on the noindex. If you add a noindex flag, Google won't index them the next time it comes-a-crawling and then you will be good to disallow 🙂

                      I'm not actually sure of the best way for you to get the noindex in to the page header of those pages though.

                      -Andy

                      Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Ria_
                        Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                        Yep, have done. (Briefly mentioned in my previous response.) Doesn't pass 😞

                        Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Ria_
                          Ria_ @Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                          I thought so too, but according to Google the trailing wildcard is completely unnecessary, and only needs to be used mid-URL.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Ria_
                            Ria_ @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                            Hi Andy,

                            Disallowing them would be my first priority really, before removing from index. Didn't want to remove them before I've blocked Google from crawling them in case they get added back again next time Google comes a-crawling, as has happened before when I've simply removed a URL here and there. Does that make sense or am I getting myself mixed up here?

                            My other hack of a solution would be to check the URL in the page.php, and if URL includes par1=ABC then insert noindex meta tag. (Not sure if that would work well or not...)

                            Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Martijn_Scheijbeler
                              Martijn_Scheijbeler @Ria_ last edited by

                              My guess would be that this line needs an * at the end.
                              Allow: /page.php?par1=ABC*

                              Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Andy.Drinkwater
                                Andy.Drinkwater @Ria_ last edited by

                                Sorry Martijn, just to jump in here for a second - Ria, you can test this via the Robots.txt testing tool in search console before going live to make sure it work.

                                -Andy

                                Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • Ria_
                                  Ria_ @Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                                  Hi Martijn, thanks for your response!

                                  I'm currently looking at something like this...

                                  **user-agent: *** #disallowing page.php and any parameters after it
                                  disallow: /page.php #but leaving anything that starts with par1=ABC
                                  allow: /page.php?par1=ABC

                                  I would have thought that you could disallow things broadly like that and give an exception, as you can with files in disallowed folders. But it's not passing Google's robots.txt Tester.

                                  One thing that's probably worth mentioning really is that there are only two variables that I want to allow of the par1 parameter. For example's sake, ABC123 and ABC456. So would need to be either a partial match or "this or that" kinda deal, disallowing everything else.

                                  Andy.Drinkwater Martijn_Scheijbeler 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • Andy.Drinkwater
                                    Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                                    Hi Ria,

                                    I have never tried regular expressions in this way, so I can't tell you if this would work or not.

                                    However, If all 1000 of these URL's are already indexed, just disallowing access won't then remove them from Google. You would ideally be able to place a noindex tag on those pages and let Google act on them, then you will be good to disallow. I am pretty sure there is no option to noindex under the URL Parameter Tool.

                                    I hope that makes sense?

                                    -Andy

                                    Ria_ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • Martijn_Scheijbeler
                                      Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

                                      Hi Ria,

                                      What you could do, but it also depends on the rest of your structure is Disallow these urls based on the parameters (what you could do in a worst case scenario is that you would disallow all URLs and then put an exception Allow in there as well to make sure you still have the right URLs being indexed).

                                      Martijn.

                                      Ria_ 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

                                      • RosemaryB

                                        Is possible to submit a XML sitemap to Google without using Google Search Console?

                                        We have a client that will not grant us access to their Google Search Console (don't ask us why). Is there anyway possible to submit a XML sitemap to Google without using GSC? Thanks

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
                                        0
                                      • Brett-S

                                        Link juice through URL parameters

                                        Hi guys, hope you had a fantastic bank holiday weekend. Quick question re URL parameters, I understand that links which pass through an affiliate URL parameter aren't taken into consideration when passing link juice through one site to another. However, when a link contains a tracking URL parameter (let's say gclid=), does link juice get passed through? We have a number of external links pointing to our main site, however, they are linking directly to a unique tracking parameter. I'm just curious to know about this. Thanks, Brett

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S
                                        0
                                      • Wagada

                                        Incorrect URL shown in Google search results

                                        Can anyone offer any advice on how Google might get the url which it displays in search results wrong? It currently appears for all pages as: <cite>www.domainname.com › Register › Login</cite> When the real url is nothing like this. It should be: www.domainname.com/product-type/product-name. This could obviously affect clickthroughs. Google has indexed around 3,000 urls on the site and they are all like this. There are links at the top of the page on the website itself which look like this: Register » Login » which presumably could be affecting it? Thanks in advance for any advice or help!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wagada
                                        0
                                      • mark_baird

                                        Do Q&A 's work for SEO

                                        If I create a good community in my particular field on my SEO site and have a quality Q&A section like this etc (ripping of MOZ's idea here sorry, I hope it's ok) will the long term returns be worth the effort of creating and man ageing this. Is the user created content of as much use as I think it will be?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mark_baird
                                        0
                                      • howlusa

                                        A few questions on Google's Structured Data Markup Helper...

                                        I'm trying to go through my site and add microdata with the help of Google's Structured Data Markup Helper. I have a few questions that I have not been able to find an answer for. Here is the URL I am referring to: http://www.howlatthemoon.com/locations/location-chicago My company is a bar/club, with only 4 out of 13 locations serving food. Would you mark this up as a local business or a restaurant? It asks for "URL" above the ratings. Is this supposed to be the URL that ratings are on like Yelp or something? Or is it the URL for the page? Either way, neither of those URLs are on the page so I can't select them. If it is for Yelp should I link to it? How do I add reviews? Do they have to be on the page? If I make a group of days for Day of the Week for Opening hours, such as Mon-Thu, will that work out? I have events on this page. However, when I tried to do the markup for just the event it told me to use  itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Event" on the body tag of the page. That is just a small part of the page, I'm not sure why I would put the event tag on the whole body? Any other tips would be much appreciated. Thanks!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | howlusa
                                        0
                                      • rayvensoft

                                        Do links to PDF's on my site pass "link juice"?

                                        Hi, I have recently started a project on one of my sites, working with a branch of the U.S. government, where I will be hosting and publishing some of their PDF documents for free for people to use.  The great SEO side of this is that they link to my site.  The thing is, they are linking directly to the PDF files themselves, not the page with the link to the PDF files.  So my question is, does that give me any SEO benefit? While the PDF is hosted on my site, there are no links in it that would allow a spider to start from the PDF and crawl the rest of my site.   So do I get any benefit from these great links?  If not, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could get credit for them.  Keep in mind that editing the PDF's are not allowed by the government. Thanks.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft
                                        0
                                      • PottyScotty

                                        Creating 100,000's of pages, good or bad idea

                                        Hi Folks, Over the last 10 months we have focused on quality pages but have been frustrated with competition websites out ranking us because they have bigger sites.  Should we focus on the long tail again? One option for us is to take every town across the UK and create pages using our activities.  e.g. Stirling
                                        Stirling paintball
                                        Stirling Go Karting
                                        Stirling Clay shooting We are not going to link to these pages directly from our main menus but from the site map. These pages would then show activities that were in a 50 mile radius of the towns.  At the moment we have have focused our efforts on Regions, e.g. Paintball Scotland, Paintball Yorkshire focusing all the internal link juice to these regional pages, but we don't rank high for towns that the activity sites are close to. With 45,000 towns and 250 activities we could create over a million pages which seems very excessive!  Would creating 500,000 of these types of pages damage our site? This is my main worry, or would it make our site rank even higher for the tougher keywords and also get lots of traffic from the long tail like we used to get. Is there a limit to how big a site should be? edit

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PottyScotty
                                        0
                                      • JamesO

                                        To subnav or NOT to subnav... that's my question.... :)

                                        We are working on a new website that is golf related and wondering about whether or not we should set up a subnavigation dropdown menu from the main menu. For example: GOLF PACKAGES
                                          >> 2 Round Packages
                                          >> 3 Round Packages
                                          >> 4 Round Packages
                                          >> 5 Round Packages GOLF COURSES
                                          >> North End Courses
                                          >> Central Courses
                                          >> South End Courses This would actually be very beneficial to our users from a usability standpoint, BUT what about from an SEO standpoint? Is diverting all the link juice to these inner pages from the main site navigation harmful?  Should we just create a page for GOLF PACKAGES and break it down on that page?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesO
                                        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

                                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.