SEO solutions to improve URL parameters
Let’s complete our focus on URL parameters: we already saw what query strings are and to which risks an ineffective site management could lead, so now is the time to discover all the best pratices to avoid any further problem. There are six ways to try and improve URL parameters and make them more and more SEO friendly, keeping an head start of filters and strings without bothering usability, crawl budget and SEO optimization.
Eliminate unnecessary URL parameters
Limit your resort to unneeded URL parameters: the easier process is to detect how and why parameters are generated and then identify the ones that are truly adding value to both users and the site from the ones that reveal themselves as useless, at best, if not downright detrimental to SEO.
We can then eliminate unnecessary query strings (the most unused filters, those parameters that do not operate useful functions, the kind of tracking that can be rendered easier by cookies), avoid the materialization of blank values, pay extra attention to never apply multiple parameters with the same name but different value, closely look after these elements’ arrangement.
Use the rel canonical to give pages hierarchy
We already dwelt on the use of rel canonicals, so all we can really add is that this kind of operation surely has some benefits (such as the simplicity of implementation, the high warranty of avoiding content duplication problems and the chance of reinforcing ranking signals on the preferred URL), but negative aspects too. After all, even with the canonical one could waste crawl budget on the parameters’ pages, and sometimes Google could decide not to use the cue (we were talking about it a few times back); moreover, it is not enforceable on all kinds of parameters.
Setting Noindex directives on Meta Robots
The third type of operation concerns meta robots and the chance to block research indexing with a “noindex” tag, that as we know is Google’s recommended method to achieve this go