In the world of SEO, URL parameters pose a significant problem.
While developers and data analysts may appreciate their utility, these query strings are an SEO headache.
Countless parameter combinations can split a single user intent across thousands of URL variations. This can cause complications for crawling, indexing, visibility and, ultimately, lead to lower traffic.
The issue is we can’t simply wish them away, which means it’s crucial to master how to manage URL parameters in an SEO-friendly way.
To do so, we will explore:
What Are URL Parameters?
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URL parameters, also known as query strings or URI variables, are the portion of a URL that follows the ‘?’ symbol. They are comprised of a key and a value pair, separated by an ‘=’ sign. Multiple parameters can be added to a single page when separated by an ‘&’.
The most common use cases for parameters are:
Tracking – For example ?utm_medium=social, ?sessionid=123 or ?affiliateid=abc
Reordering – For example ?sort=lowest-price, ?order=highest-rated or ?so=latest
Filtering – For example ?type=widget, colour=purple or ?price-range=20-50
Identifying – For example ?product=small-purple-widget, categoryid=124 or itemid=24AU
Paginating – For example, ?page=2, ?p=2 or viewItems=10-30
Searching – For example, ?query=users-query, ?q=users-query or ?search=drop-down-option
Translating – For example, ?lang=fr or ?language=de
SEO Issues With URL Parameters
1. Parameters Create Duplicate Content
Often, URL parameters make no significant change to the content of a page.
A re-ordered version of the page is often not so different from the original. A page URL with tracking tags or a session ID is identical to the original.
For example, the following URLs would all return a collection of widgets.
Static URL: https://www.example.com/widgets
Tracking parameter: https://www.example.com/widgets?sessionID=32764
Reordering parameter: https://www.example.com/widgets?sort=latest
Identifying parameter: https://www.example.com?category=widgets
Searching parameter: https://www.example.com/products?search=widget
That’s quite a few URLs for what is effectively the same content – now imagine this over every category on your site. It can really add up.
The challenge is that search engines treat every parameter-based URL as a new page. So, they see multiple variations of the same page, all serving duplicate content and all targeting the same search intent or semantic topic.
While such duplication is unlikely to cause a website to be completely filtered out of the search results, it does lead to keyword cannibalization and could downgrade Google’s view of your overall site quality, as these additional URLs add no real value.
2. Parameters Reduce Crawl Efficacy
Crawling redundant parameter pages distracts Googlebot, reducing your site’s ability to index SEO-relevant pages and increasing server load.
Google sums up this point perfectly.
“Overly complex URLs, especially those containing multiple parameters, can cause a problems for crawlers by creating unnecessarily high numbers of URLs that point to identical or similar content on your site.
As a result, Googlebot may consume much more bandwidth than necessary, or may be unable to completely index all the content on your site.”
3. Parameters Split Page Ranking Signals
If you have multiple permutations of the same page content, links and social shares may be coming in on various versions.
This dilutes your ranking signals. When you confuse a crawler, it becomes unsure which of the competing pages to index for the search query.
4. Parameters Make URLs Less Clickable
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Let’s face it: parameter URLs are unsightly. They’re hard to read. They don’t seem as trustworthy. As such, they are slightly less likely to be clicked.
This may impact page performance. Not only because CTR influences rankings, but also because it’s less clickable in AI chatbots, social media, in emails, when copy-pasted into forums, or anywhere else the full URL may be displayed.
While this may only have a fractional impact on a single page’s amplification, every tweet, like, share, email, link, and mention matters for the domain.
Poor URL readability could contribute to a decrease in brand engagement.
Assess The Extent Of Your Parameter Problem
It’s important to know every parameter used on your website. But chances are your developers don’t keep an up-to-date list.
So how do you find all the parameters that need handling? Or understand how search engines crawl and index such pages? Know the value they bring to users?
Follow these five steps:
Run a crawler: With a tool like Screaming Frog, you can search for “?” in the URL.
Review your log files: See if Googlebot is crawling parameter-based URLs.
Look in the Google Search Console page indexing report: In the samples of index and relevant non-indexed exclusions, search for ‘?’ in the URL.
Search with site: inurl: advanced operators: Know how Google is indexing the parameters you found by putting the key in a site:example.com inurl:key combination query.
Look in Google Analytics all pages report: Search for “?” to see how each of the parameters you found are used by users. Be sure to check that URL query parameters have not been excluded in the view setting.
Armed with this data, you can now decide how to best handle each of your website’s parameters.
SEO Solutions To Tame URL Parameters
You have six tools in your SEO arsenal to deal with URL parameters on a strategic level.
Limit Parameter-based URLs
A simple review of how and why parameters are generated can provide an SEO quick win.
You will often find ways to reduce the number of parameter URLs and thus minimize the negative SEO impact. There are four common issues to begin your review.
1. Eliminate Unnecessary Parameters
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Ask your developer for a list of every website’s parameters and their functions. Chances are, you will discover parameters that no longer perform a valuable function.
For example, users can be better identified by cookies than sessionIDs. Yet the sessionID parameter may still exist on your website as it was used historically.
Or you may discover that a filter in your faceted navigation is rarely applied by your users.
Any parameters caused by technical debt should be eliminated immediately.
2. Prevent Empty Values
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URL parameters should be added to a URL only when they have a function. Don’t permit parameter keys to be added if the value is blank.
In the above example, key2 and key3 add no value, both literally and figuratively.
3. Use Keys Only Once
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Avoid applying multiple parameters with the same parameter name and a different value.
For multi-select options, it is better to combine the values after a single key.
4. Order URL Parameters
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If the same URL parameter is rearranged, the pages are interpreted by search engines as equal.
As such, parameter order doesn’t matter from a duplicate content perspective. But each of those combinations burns crawl budget and split ranking signals.
Avoid these issues by asking your developer to write a script to always place parameters in a consistent order, regardless of how the user selected them.
In my opinion, you should start with any translating parameters, followed by identifying, then pagination, then layering on filtering and reordering or search parameters, and finally tracking.
Pros:
Ensures more efficient crawling.
Reduces duplicate content issues.
Consolidates ranking signals to fewer pages.
Suitable for all parameter types.
Cons:
Moderate technical implementation time.
Rel=”Canonical” Link Attribute
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The rel=”canonical” link attribute calls out that a page has identical or similar content to another. This encourages search engines to consolidate the ranking signals to the URL specified as canonical.
You can rel=canonical your parameter-based URLs to your SEO-friendly URL for tracking, identifying, or reordering parameters.
But this tactic is not suitable when the parameter page content is not close enough to the canonical, such as pagination, searching, translating, or some filtering parameters.