Duplicate title tags due to lightbox use

[McTaggart]

I am looking at a site and am pulling up duplicate title tags because of their lightbox use so...

So they have a page: http://www.website.com/page

and then a duplicate of that page: http://www.website.com/page?width=500&height=600

on a huge number of pages (using Drupal)...

that kind of thing - what would be the best / cleanest solution?

[Keszi]

Hi Luke,

I would implement a canonical in any situation where there can be parameters in the url. This way telling any search engine to only consider one (the original) version of that page.

Gr., Keszi

[AFW1179]

Keszi is that really necessary? As a programmer I find it difficult to believe that Google would require such a ridiculous thing. Any url can have a query string appended and then a link built to that query url+query string. Query strings simply add a ? then a key=value pair to the url. If this were necessary I could go to my competitors website and just add a query string and build a bunch of backlinks to it. Google would then consider all their website duplicate content because the website root exists and a website root version with a query string on the same page.

What I am getting at is that query strings don't require such action. Something on the client side would never require server side action by any third party (google or otherwise). It would basically be to easily manipulated.

However, there are times that the website uses valid query strings to sort/filter or even deliver content (like modern CMS joomla, drupal, wordpress). When you query a database with a query string normally there is significant code that handles the URL and makes it a url in it's own right. You don't see ?p=23. You see a url friendly version.

If your website has query strings that sort/filter and the site is not sophisticated enough to manipulate those query strings with .htaccess to deliver SEO friendly urls I would suggest reading/utilizing this google page/tool.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080548?hl=en

This explains this EXACT issue. When websites expose query strings that enable the site to sort/filter.

[Keszi]

Hi there,

IMO the two pages are near duplicates and I have seen pages that have been indexed in such cases (on one of our own projects). Then we have taken in consideration the canonical, and issue was solved. This is why I have recommended it, but I am opened to other solutions also.

Gr., Keszi