Can trackingcodes in your url be seen as duplicate content or break other rules?
-
I recently gave ReachLocal control to manage my Adwords campagne. I didnt want "Reverse Proxy" on so I decided to go with the Remote Conversion Tracking. So they track my website in every stap of the way. Therefor I had to place a Javascript on each page.
But what worries me are these kind of URL's I see appearing in my Analytics account:
/webpaginaname.html?scid+29903&cid=12343&tc+13012316371028544&rl_key=32850e0a2d4499e02a711d0b969044d2&kw+8307565&pub_cr_id=16701148613&dynamic_proxy=1&primary_serv=www.website.com&rl_track_landing_pages=1
Could this be seen as duplicate content by Google? Or could it break any other rule you know of? Should I be worried?
Thanks a lot!
-
Hi Peter, that owuld mean that it is already indexed? Then it would be too late. I want to avoid a problems before they are there. I will PM the exact url.
-
Unfortunately, it can vary wildly - in some cases, those variants aren't really crawlable and/or Goolge will ignore them. In other cases, they can spin out a lot of duplicates. It's hard to speak to the crawlability without digging into the site, but you can test for indexed copies with a Google query like:
site:example.com inurl:scid
If you're seeing versions of these URLs indexed, then you may have a problem. GWT parameter handling is one option, but you could also use rel=canonical to point these variants back to the original page. It depends a bit on the situation and the scope.
-
I would handle this situation using the URL parameters screen within Google Webmaster Tools (shown in the attached screenshot). You can add URL parameters into the screen and set them to have 'no effect', which means when Google indexes your site, whatever URL parameters you're set to 'no effect' will be ignored by the spider.
-
For whatever reason, the URL you posted isn't formatting correctly for me to be able to see it all (it gets cut off), so I apologize if I can't speak directly to your example.
I will tell you from my personal experience that the way our place uses tracking codes has indeed created duplicate content.
Example: www.domain.com?cid=102is the same content as www.domain.com - so unless you prevent it before these URLs get indexed, you can have a mess to clean up. It comes up in Moz, Screaming Frog, etc.
-
With my experience with tracking URLs I have never had an instance of duplicate content. Although I was working solely with Google Analytics tracking URLs I think you should be safe.
To double check yourself you can run a report in Screaming Frog or check SEOMoz to see if you are getting any duplciate errors or show multiple versions of the same URL in your Screaming Frog report.
I have been using tracking URLs for close to two years now and that is how I always double check myself.
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
-
Any PPC Companies out there who can work with small accounts
I have a story , 18 months ago we had our own PPC adwords account, we had been running at £3.20 CPA for quite some time and we were very happy. Sometimes CPA would go up , sometimes down, but not my very much. One unfortunate day google rang, and told us , that our CPA should ne £2.50 and that we needed expert advice that they couldn't actually give us, we needed an expert. To cut a long story short and after 5 very expert companies have messed with our account, we had varying results. One company left us with 2 leads per day at £10 a lead !!!! , one did better than that and setup a £3k adwords account using their expert advice, blew it all and said "times are tough" sorry !!! The last company was actually the best, great guy , but I think we are two small for him, we have varying results, one day we get 30 leads, the next we get 10 , one day its £3.50 CPA , next its £7.00 . But on the whole very happy with his initial work We just want a company that doesn't Lie to us , tells us straight , and can use their expertise to get us a CPA of £3.50 and help us get upto 50 leads a day, if not more. Thanks Hope that makes sense Nick
Conversion Rate Optimization | | NickKer
systems direct ltd0 -
Help with ecommerce duplicate pages and SEO advice(magento base site)
Hi, We have a magento build site (www.mokee.eu) and are selling our own branded goods. So far it is a very limited range of products. It's 1 baby crib in 5 variations. We recently started getting more sales from the site, so I started to look a bit more into optimising our site. I rewrote item name, created better descriptions, added meta titles and description etc. and subscribed to the MOZ analytics platform to understand a bit better ways to improve things up. From what I saw we have a big issue of duplicated content because our product pages are the same and only the product colour changes, which is something google apparently doesn't like However it is important for us that each colour get referenced by google so people who search for grey cot can find a picture of our grey cot etc... Also I was thinking to create only on multi variation page with all colour but when you have only 1 product to sell it might look a bit empty on the site. 1- Do you guys have some advise on how to go round this issue? 2- Do you have any other advise for my site in particular to optimise things and actually do you think i should be worried at all with such a small catalogue? Thanks Sam
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mokeestore0 -
Can using the Google Keywords tool and/or SEOmoz cause problems for my company's IP address?
I just started with a company a few weeks back, working on-site doing SEO work. I've been using SEOmoz as well as Google Adwords' Keywords tool. I just got a message from one of our reps saying that people at the office (and this is a huge office) have reported tons of CAPTCHAs being thrown up frequently. I told them I had been running searches with Google Keywords tool and SEOmoz, but would that really cause that much of a problem? Is there anything I can do in order to fix this, some keyword finders that won't get me in trouble, etc.?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SmokewagonKen0 -
Can someone give me some good articles about conversion?
I finally bought the seo moz pro version. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable in seo, content/social media marketing, but I am a rookie at conversion optimization. HELP PLEASE! I am trying to convert traffic into phone calls and/or contact forms.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SwanJob0 -
SEO For Personalized Content Pages
Hi, We are building a site that has content that personalizes based each visitor. This is being done to serve the most relevant content for conversion purposes and NOT for SEO purposes. So, there are many diferent versions of each page based on the visitor's location, device, browser, keyword-used, traffic source, etc. Obviously, we don't want this to appear like cloaking (it is genuine content personalization) and wondered how Google would view this? What is the safeguard for protecting the website from potential penalties? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Clickthroo0 -
How can I improve my Adsense CTR / CPC?
Here's one page where my Ads' setup can be seen: http://www.gameseducativos.com/guarda-do-zoologico/quebra-cabecas
Conversion Rate Optimization | | rpedri0 -
How can I pass the Search Term into a lead form?
We receive lead forms from interested visitors that include their name, email, grade level, and academic goals, and we would like to also know which specific phrase they used when searching for us. I need to find a way to grab the referring keywords and pass them as a hidden form field. Can this be done, and are there scripts available that can do this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | brycebertola0 -
Duplicating Product Titles in the Page-Content
I have been debating this with a few others within my office and we would like an outside opinion on this issue. This screenshot is of a new product grid I have been designing. I have decided to try something new for SEO that I have seen elsewhere. (see attached image) The page-content below the last products on the page, now have a small paragraph that contains all the products "titles" that are visible on the page. The intention is to capitalize on multiple search terms by using modifiers to replace special character sets within the title. For example: 46" 3 Seat Perforated Square Picnic Table = 46 Inch 3 Seat Perforated Square Picnic Table Not only does this give a secondary search term that could convert but increases the number if instances of "Table" within the page. Suggestions or Thoughts? Thanks! GviGn.jpg
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Highland0