Which is best of narrow by search URLs? Canonical or NOINDEX

[CommercePundit]

I have set canonical to all narrow by search URLs. I think, it's not working well. You can get more idea by following URLs.

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?material_search=1328

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?finish_search=146

These kind of page have canonical tag which is pointing to following one.

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps

Because, it's actual page which I want to out rank.

But, all narrow by search URLs have very different products compare to base URLs. So, How can we say it duplicate one?

Which is best solution for it. Canonical or NOINDEX it by Robots?

[Naghirniac]

I was reading a lot about this, and the better solution is using more than one method.

There is a post in SEO MOZ Blog from Lindsay that I think will answer your question: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/robot-access-indexation-restriction-techniques-avoiding-conflicts

[AlanMosley]

Canonical, dont use noindex in robots,

By using no index by robotes, you lose all the link juice of any link pointing to the no-indexed pages.

If the pages are not duplicates, then dont do anything, let them all rank.

[Dr-Pete]

I generally agree with Alan (although I think NOINDEX, FOLLOW is ok, since these pages are unlikely to have external/inbound links), but there's no perfect solution for these types of pages. They aren't exact duplicates, but they may look low value to search. Given our current tools, canonical may be your best choice.

If you're talking about a couple-dozen pages, it's no big deal, and you could leave them alone. If the different filters are spinning out 100s of variants, then I would control them somehow.

[CommercePundit]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers

I'm coming back on this question after 5 months. I have implemented Canonical tag to following pages. But, It did not work well and indexed too many duplicate content.

Narrow by search:

http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/manufacturer-boss

http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/manufacturer-boss/material-search-caressoftSorting:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/order-positionNumber of products:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/limit-100/order-positionPagination:http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/dir-desc/limit-100/order-position/p-4Right now, I have removed Canonical tag to entire website and implement NOINDEX Follow meta robots.I am really confuse between Canonical and NOINDEX Follow.Can you give me exact solution for my current CMS structure?

[Dr-Pete]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused, because these sample URLs/situations seem very different from the ones you originally asked about. Search filters vs. sorts vs. pagination all have potentially different solutions and implementing them on a large e-commerce site is very tricky.

Typically, rel=prev/next is better for pagination. For filters, you can use rel-canonical or NOINDEX, but it's often better to try to block some parameters from being crawled at all.

In the examples, you just gave, I suspect that rel-canonical may not have worked properly because Google saw the pages as being too differently. Honestly, though, for deep pages like this, it can also just come down to time. Sometimes, it takes Google quite a while to honor the tags.

There's no harm in trying NOINDEX, but I'd give it time. Don't change tactics every couple of weeks, or you could end up with even more mess.

A canonicalization strategy that covers your entire site is well beyond the scope of Q&A, I'm afraid. It's very tricky on large sites, and I've often found that the results have to be measured and strategies adjusted as you go. You can do it by the book and still have Google ignore it. It depends a lot on your internal architecture and link structure.

Ideally, control the crawl structure first. The less of these duplicates that are available for Google to crawl, the better. Canonical is often effective, but it's also a band-aid in situations like these. NOINDEX sometimes works better, but it's also a patch, too often.

You could use NOINDEX in concert with blocking some of the parameters in Google Webmaster Tools. I don't think it's an ideal long-term solution, but if your index exploded and you've got hundreds or thousands of thin pages, it may be worth doing in the short-term.

[CommercePundit]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers

Sorry, I'm a bit confused, because these sample URLs/situations seem very different from the ones you originally asked about.

I have changed URL structure in entire website and make it more SEO friendly.

but if your index exploded and you've got hundreds or thousands of thin pages, it may be worth doing in the short-term.

I have attached Index Status for Vista Stores screenshot to know more about it.

There are 12,000 product pages + 100 categories + 30 blog posts + 20 static pages + 1 home page = 12,151 pages are important for me and want to index and rank well.

Now, rest of pages are not duplicate ~ not near duplicate or true duplicate.

Just have a look at following pages.

http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/p-2

http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs/shopby/p-3

Why should I set canonical tag pointing to base URL as follow. Because, page 2 and 3 does not contain any single product which is available on base page. So, Can we calculate as a duplicate? OR Will Google count as duplicate.

http://www.vistastores.com/office-chairs

7885589970_6d7a119d3f_b.jpg

[Dr-Pete]

That's pretty much typical search pagination. You can use NOINDEX on pages 2+, but Google currently recommends the rel=prev/next tags:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

The new tags seems to be working better over the past few months, but they can be tricky to implement, as they're different for every page (you have to create them dynamically). Historically, I've found that NOINDEX works pretty well for search pagination.

In this particular case, you wouldn't want to use canonical tags. Pagination is a bit unique. Unfortunately, even within internal search, different aspects can require different tags. It gets tricky fast these days.

[CommercePundit]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers

After long discussion, I can conclude that, I have to go with NOINDEX. Let's see what happen in next 4 months. Then, I will re-evaluate it for better performance. As per your suggestion, it's quite tricky to change tactics on weekly bases and it may not help us more in same direction. Thanks for your valuable time on my question and prompt reply on each question.

[Dr-Pete]

It can be frustrating, but definitely give any change time to work (unless it seems like it's actually harming you). It can take Google a long time to re-index/re-cache deep pages, even if they visit your site daily.