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.
What is the best way to treat URLs ending in /?s=
-
-
Hi Alex
These are parameters that sit after the main URL and often include 'sort' 'page'. (They can also be created in some eCommerce pages as 'products' but these should be dealt with a mod-rewrite to show properly constructed URLs with category name and title). There are a number of ways with dealing with them:
1. Google search console - you have to be very careful messing with the rules in parameter handling but for some, this is the way.
- 'sort' then you can tell Google that it narrows the content on the page - you can then choose to let Googlebot decide or block the URLs - I often block them as they just create skinny and duplicate content.
- Pagination - 'page' you can tell Google that this paginates and then let Google decide. Look at rel/prev tag on those pages as well.
- Attributes - like size and colour - I generally block those as they just create skinny duplicates of main categories
- Others - like Catalog - it depends on what platform you use but there could be other parameters being created - I block most of them as they create useless URLs
2. Robots.txt
You can use this file to block the indexing of these pages depending on the parameter by excluding them from being followed by the search bots. Once again be very careful as you don't want to accidentally block indexing of useful areas the site.
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/robotstxt
3. Canonicals
If you are able a great way of dealing with attributes like size and colour is to canonicalize back to the non size specific URL - this is a great way of maintaining the link juice for those URLs which may otherwise be lost if you blocked them all together. You add a rel=canonical tag pointing to the non-parameter version.
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/canonicalization
4. As a last resort you can 301 redirect them but frankly, if you have dealt with them properly you shouldn't have to. It's also bad practice to have live 301 redirects in the internal structure of a website. Best to use the correct URL.
There is more reading here:
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/which-is-the-best-way-to-handle-query-parameters
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/do-parameters-in-a-url-make-a-difference-from-an-seo-point-of-view
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/how-do-i-deindex-url-parametersRegards
Nigel
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.
Related Questions
-
Youtube traffic page url referral
Hello, How can I see which videos from Youtube that has my domain inserted in their description url drive traffic to my domain? I can see in GA how many visitors are coming from Youtube to my domain, but I can't see what Youtube video pages has driven traffic. Any help?
Moz Pro | | xeonet320 -
404 Crawl Diagnostics with void(0) appended to URL
Hello I am getting loads of 404 reported in my Crawl report, all appended with void(0) at the end. For example: http://lfs.org.uk/films-and-filmmakers/watch-our-films/1289/void(0)
Moz Pro | | moshen
The site is running on Drupal 7, Has anyone come across this before? Kind Regards Moshe | http://lfs.org.uk/films-and-filmmakers/watch-our-films/1289/void(0) |0 -
I am looking for SEO tips specifically for magazine site's
I have a client who has a website that is based on a magazine. They make their money through advertisement I am primarily an inbound marketer I would be very grateful if anyone out there has any tips for a site that has been around for quite a while ( over 10 years) we are transforming the site from HTML into WordPress then hosting it with a fast managed WordPress host using CDN. I feel the lack of links is an obvious place to start however if there's anything specific to magazine based websites I would be more than grateful to hear your opinions. Thank you all in advance. Sincerely, Thomas von Zickell
Moz Pro | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Is there a way to see what keywords users of my site are using to find it online?
Since Google Analytics no longer shows the keywords used by people to find a site online, does the SEOMoz toolset provide somethng to show this data?
Moz Pro | | Mionkeybot0 -
Duplicate page titles are the same URL listed twice
The system says I have two duplicate page titles. The page titles are exactly the same because the two URLs are exactly the same. These same two identical URLs show up in the Duplicate Page Content also - because they are the same. We also have a blog and there are two tag pags showing identical content - I have blocked the blog in robots.txt now, because the blog is only for writers. I suppose I could have just blocked the tags pages.
Moz Pro | | loopyal0 -
Is there a tool to upload multiple URLs and gather statistics and page rank?
I was wondering if there is a tool out there where you can compile a list of URL resources, upload them in a CSV and run a report to gather and index each individual page. Does anyone know of a tool that can do this or do we need to create one?
Moz Pro | | Brother220 -
Best Practices for having Social Profiles indexed
There has been a lot of talk lately around social profiles potentially improving your brand as well as search. What I'd like to know is the best practices for getting those social profiles crawled and indexed so they actually provide a good link to my site. I'm also wondering what the difference between what Linkscape sees and what Google sees and when I'm looking at Open Site Explorer's rankings on one of those social profiles how can I be sure that Google sees it the same way. I ask this because a lot of these profiles are not well internally linked to. An example is about.me, it's a potentially great link, but it's essentially an island, and even after dropping a couple Twitter links to my profile, Open Site Explorer shows and Page Authority of 1, and it's not even indexed with Google. What I did last night was put a link to my about.me, flickr and wedding wire in my Connect menu drop down on my site to get that crawled hopefully soon. Are there other methods of getting those crawled and indexed so it starts passing some juice?
Moz Pro | | WilliamBay
What do you guys do?0 -
SEO PowerSuite - best kept SEO secret or just bullsh..?!?
I've come across a lot of SEO tools in the last 5-6 years. And there are many great tools out there! I don't believe in the one-tool-fits-all. Among the tools I make use of are Raven Tools and Searchmetrics (great audit and market analysis tool!), and the tools in here, of course. In my search for a better ranking report tool I came across Rank Tracker from SEO PowerSuite. That seems like a great tool in category with AWR; but I am not able tell so as I am not a power user. Well, here is where I am going: I then tested the rest of the PowerSuite and it seems as a great product. But searching for the tools in here, and nothing shows up. Silence. Also elsewhere in other serious places. Why is that? It is a collective secret, shhhh, don't tell 🙂. Or is it is just crap? I know they have a bad reputation in regard to prices and updates. What do you guys think?
Moz Pro | | Danni0