URL Parameters Duplicate Page Title

[bamron]

Thanks in advance,

I'm getting duplicate page titles because seomoz keeps crawling through my url parameters.  I added forcefiltersupdate to the URL parameters in webmaster tools but it has not seemed to have an effect.

Below is an example of the duplicate content issue that I am having.

http://qlineshop.com/OC/index.php?route=product/category&path=59_62&forcefiltersupdate=true&checkedfilters[]=a.13.13.387baf0199e7c9cc944fae94e96448fa

Any thoughts?  Thanks again.

-Patrick

[ThompsonPaul]

The SEOMoz crawler has absolutely no way of knowing what directives you have entered in Webmaster Tools, Brad, That info is only available to Google. (Which is one reason why using only that approach is not optimal; as it won't help your rankings with other search engines.)

Hope that makes sense?

Paul

[Everett]

Hello Patrick,

SEOMoz / Open Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools are not related in any way. If you have given Google instructions on how to handle parameters via GWT then Google should be following those instructions. SEOMoz, however, will not.

If the problem is still there, and you can fix it, then you should. Google isn't the only search engine, and their parameter handling options are more of a band-aid for when you don't have other solutions at your disposal. This is why it is good that SEOMoz continues to report the issue regardless of how you have set things up in GWT.

Consider adding a rel canonical tag to fix the issue.

[SSFCU]

Hi Paul! Is there any way to know whether the GWT parameter directive is working? Since only Google has that information, do they have a way to cross-check that the directive was correctly given and executed?

As an aside, I will be really pushing for canonical tags when I meet with our MIS department, but I have been warned that I may not be successful. Why would that be? I must add that we have an old, rickety site authored in SharePoint 2010. My job is to do the best I can and cross my fingers we upgrade to SP 2013.

Thanks,
Sarah