URL Parameter Setting Recommendation - Webmaster Tools, Breadcrumbs & 404s

[Doug_G]

Hi All,

We use a parameter called "breadCrumb" to drive the breadcrumbs on our ecommerce product pages that are categorized in multiple places.  For example, our "Blue Widget" product may have the following URLs:

http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget      
http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget_?breadCrumb=BrandTree_
http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget_?breadCrumb=CategoryTree1_
http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget_?breadCrumb=CategoryTree2_

We use a canonical tag pointing back to the base product URL.  The parameter only changes the breadcrumbs.  Which of the following, if any, settings would you recommend for such a parameter in GWT:

Does this parameter change page content seen by the user? Options:  Yes/No
How does this parameter affect page content? Options:  Narrows/Specifies/Other

Currently, google decided to automatically assign the parameter as "Yes/Other/Let Googlebot Decide" without notifying us.  We noticed a drop in rankings around the suspected time of the assignment.

Lastly, we have a consistent flow of products that are discontinued that we 404.  As a result of the breadcrumb parameter, our 404s increase significantly (one for each path).  Would 800 404 crawl errors out of 18k products cause a penalty on a young site?  We got an "Increase in '404' pages' email from GWT, shortly after our rankings seemed to drop.

Thank you for any advice or suggestions!   Doug

[anthonydnelson]

I would tell GWT that this parameter Does Not change the content on the page. A single breadcrumb path does not significantly change the content on a page.

Consider a site that sells shoes and may be using parameters like fakeshoestore.com/mens?color=black. In this case, the color parameter is creating a completely new set of results, Narrowing the entire men's shoe category down to black shoes. That is a new page and you want it treated as such. (No canonical, Yes->Narrows).

With Google thinking http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget and http://www.oursite.com/item3332/blue-widget_?breadCrumb=BrandTree_ have different content on them, they may be splitting the link equity between these duplicate pages, allowing neither of them to rank well. Even though you have the canonical tag in place (good job) it is more of a hint to Google as opposed to an absolute directive.

The 404 pages isn't a huge concern. As with all 404's redirect the ones that receive organic traffic or have external links pointing at them.

[Doug_G]

Thanks for the response Anthony!  It's greatly appreciated.

> splitting the link equity between these duplicate pages
This is our main fear given that every listing page link uses this parameter.

We thought about using the "No" option because we agree that the content doesn't really change, but google says this next to the option: "If many URLs differ only in this parameter, Googlebot will crawl one representative URL.".  It may have the same result?  Not sure.

Maybe the following would force the issue?
Does this parameter change page content seen by the user? >> Yes
How does this parameter affect page content? >> Other
Which URLs with this parameter should Googlebot crawl? >> Every URL

Also, we could try to delete their auto assignment of the parameter and hope for a different result.  Anyway, thanks again for the feedback.