Affiliate links and parameters creating duplicate page titles

[guidetoiceland]

Hi, we have an affiliate system and use rel=**canonical **to canonicalise them to the right link.  Still, we see those links creating duplicate page titles, in Moz crawl and in Google search console.

How are we supposed to treat those links so they do not create duplicate content? Thanks for your help!

[MikeRoberts]

Its important to remember that a Canonical is a suggestion not a directive. So making those canonicals is the right way to do it but the search engines and crawlers will determine at their leisure whether they believe the canonical is right or not. Sometimes its a quick fix, and some times they don't accept the canonical at all. If the pages are exact duplicates then Google will get the picture eventually and start recognizing it. As for the Moz crawler, I haven't had a paid account in a while so I can't speak to the way the system works currently but I do know that it used to be an issue where the Moz crawler would never seem to properly recognize a canonicalized duplicate... so that may still be the issue,

[guidetoiceland]

Thanks Mike,

I´m thinking if a no index would be more appropriate...?

Some links with filtering parameters are also appearing, even though they were canonicals too. I´m guessing a 301 would make sense there...?

[MikeRoberts]

How long ago did you implement canonicals to fix the issue? Its important to remember that a lot of SEO isn't about quick fixes. Some of these things will take weeks/months to completely filter through and for you to see the outcomes you were looking for.

You could "NoIndex, Follow" the pages if you really wanted to but I'd suggest waiting a bit longer for the canonicals to start working. If the canonicals really don't seem to be working for some/all of those pages, and you don't want to give it more time after a few weeks, then you could reasonably "NoIndex, Follow" the pages... but you could be harming link equity that would have been attributed to the canon page.

As for the 301 idea, it would really depend upon what the filtering parameters are doing. If its filtering out sections of a page for users or its helping you determining lead attribution in analytics, then I wouldn't want to indiscriminately 301 them. If they're being autogenerated but have canonicals in them from the start then you should be fine. Like above though, if after a few weeks of them existing with canonicals Google still is throwing duplicate errors at you for those specific pages then you can NonIndex them if you feel it is necessary.