How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?

[CommercePundit]

Today, I was reading help article for URL parameters by Google.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1235687

I come to know that, Google is giving value to URLs which ave parameters that change or determine the content of a page. There are too many pages in my website with similar value for Name, Price and Number of product. But, I have restricted all pages by Robots.txt with following syntax.

URLs:
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=price
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100

Syntax in Robots.txt
Disallow: /?dir=
Disallow: /?p=
Disallow: /*?limit=

Now, I am confuse. Which is best solution to get maximum benefits in SEO?

[AlanMosley]

I would simplty put a rel canonical in the page point ing to the true URL. so SE's will see them as one page.

It is better to use cononical for the reasons in the google doc you posted, goolge may not pick the nest url to be the canonical, you should make that choice for them

[CommercePundit]

Honestly, I did not getting it. Because, I have read one help article about URL parameters by Google.

It shows me some different thing. Google suggested to use Google webmaster tools. But, I have restricted all dynamic pages by robots.txt.

So, I want to know best practice which may help me to gain my crawling and no of indexed pages.

[AlanMosley]

Thats the advice i gave you, put a canonical tag in the page

rel="canonical" href="http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps"/>

if google finds http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name

it will know it5 is mean to be http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps

[CommercePundit]

Will it really work? Because, both page have different content.

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps have 100 products and

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100&p=2 have different + unique 100 products.

One another problem is regarding Meta info. Both page have same Meta info. If Google will index both pages so it may create warning message for duplicate Meta info across too many pages.

[AlanMosley]

If the content is different, then dont do anything, but if it is duplicate us ethe canonical tag.

The meta tages are not a problem, you are not going to get flaged for that, it would be better if you could make them unique but this is a very small problem

[CommercePundit]

Your concern is that, Google will crawl following all pages. If I will not do any thing with those pages. Right?

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100&p=2

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=60&p=2

http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=40&p=2

Now, my website is on 3rd page of Google for Discount Table Lamps keyword.

I have fear that, If Google will crawl multiple pages with duplicate Title tag so it may mesh up current ranking for Discount Table Lamps keyword.

What you think about it?

[AlanMosley]

No i dont think so, even if the thought they were duplicate, then they will pick one as the original. so one of them will rank.

If you are still concerned use tha canonicall tag, rather them remove them from index