Why are pages linked with URL parameters showing up as separate pages with duplicate content?

[BlueLinkERP]

Only one page exists . . .

Yet I link to the page with different URL parameters for tracking purposes and for some reason it is showing up as a separate page with duplicate content . . .

Help?

rpcIZ.png

[GeorgeAndrews]

SEOmoz has a page on the topic of duplicate content that might help: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

Using a canonical link may fix your issue for when you provide URL parameters for tracking purposes. Try that.

Hope this helps!

[donford]

Hi David,

The reason for that is because the second page exist at that url.

To fix that you can add a rel="canonical" tag to the pre_qualification.asp page

That will prevent crawlers from seeing the second page as a new page.

Hope that helps,

Don

[DeanAndrews]

Hi
Looking at the screen shot I assume that you are using Google analytics custom campaign parameters.
To resolve this issue I used the robots.txt file adding the following

Disallow: /*?utm_

NOTE:
Be very careful when blocking search engines. Test and test again!