Google’s Gary Illyes Warns on URL Parameter Issues

Source: Photo by Bastian Riccardi_pexels_15406292

For the second time thus far, Google’s Gary Illyes, a celeb in the SEO space, has come out warning of possible pitfalls around URL parameters. In his recent interviews and through his social media posts, Illyes underlined the addressment of issues with URL parameters if a site were to perform optimally and be visible on search engines.

URL parameters are extra components added to a URL to provide more detail or context. While they are useful for tracking user behavior, filtering content, or personalizing the user experience, creating too many unique URLs with the same content that point to it, can lead to inappropriate or excessive crawling, and eventually overwhelm search engine crawlers.

Illyes mentioned a few of the top-level concerns related to URL parameters:

Waste of the budget: If search engines visit a site and they find a lot of URLs that are a mixture of all sorts of parameters, those search engines would waste the budget trying to crawl and index all of those unique URLs. That would inject a loss for the search engine budget for other valuable pages, and it greatly affects the search engine visibility in general.

Server Load: Having a proliferation of URL parameters also loads the server due to search engines’ repeated requests for the same content under different URLs. This may lead to times in slower page loads and possibly have a negative impact on user experience.

Here Illyes suggests some ways to fix this issue:

• Properly configure your robots.txt: You can instruct search engines not to crawl the unnecessary URL parameters through proper configuration of your robots.txt. That helps in preserving the crawl budget and reduces the server load.
• Put in a canonical tag: Implement canonical tags in the preferred version of the URL. Different URLs point to the same content helps search engines in understanding that and can save you on duplicate content issues.
• URL Structure Optimization: Come up with a clean, clear structure for URLs, which is understandable both for a user and a search engine, without overloading it with parameters, especially those that indicate irrelevant logic.
• Filtering Parameters: When URL parameters cannot be avoided, try using tools or techniques that pre-filter unnecessary or redundant parameters before they are sent to the search engines.

However, for any e-commerce site, for that matter, a site that may have a heavy reliance on URL parameters, the issue to take care of is to identify, tackle, and manage URL parameter issues. E-commerce sites are often sites that may have a heavy reliance on URL parameters for keeping track of product variations, user preferences, and so on. So, proper handling of URL parameters, hence, would result in better search engine rankings and even a better user experience for that matter, considering e-commerce sites.

Besides this, Illyes advises keeping abreast of new search engine algorithms and their activities regarding the best practices that need to be fully followed. There are always updates in algorithms by Google for the enhancement of search results and to overcome different issues. Website owners need to make sure that their SEO practices are relevant to the ongoing updates.

It is good to employ URL parameters while using them judicially during website optimization. Following the proposed way and adopting the best practices suggested by Illyes, a website owner can make sure he or she has not fallen into any of the major pitfalls and can increase his or her performance on the search engine.

The URL parameters are nothing but the query strings that come after the main URL and can create a huge amount of impact on the SEO performance of a website if not dealt with properly. While they offer such valuable functionality in tracking, filtering, and personalization, they also give rise to other problems with duplicate content, wasted crawl budget, and dilution of equity in the link.

Common issues and outcomes of their application:

Duplicate Content: When the URL parameters are used in such a way that they filter or sort content without changing the actual structure of the page, it can lead to many versions of the same page. This can cause confusion and search engines to penalize for duplicate content.

Wasted Crawl Budget: Search engines provide a limited resource allowance to spend on the crawling and indexing of websites. Spending a good level of the budget on unnecessary URL parameter variations could affect the indexing of more important pages.

Dilution of Link Equity: If a single page results in several versions due to different URL parameters, then the link equity it will receive might get diffused over those versions. That could dilute your overall ranking potential. User Experience Issues: Too many parameters make for a very long and ugly URL that is difficult to remember and share with others. In such cases, user experience is generally compromised, and the bounce rate usually increases.

Effective URL Parameter Management Strategies

• Canonicalization: Using a canonical tag, tell what the preferable version of the URL is. This way you inform search engines they all have the same content and we can avoid content duplication.
• Robots.txt directives: Even better, robots.txt directives are used to inform search engines not to crawl a bunch of unwanted URL parameter variations. It can save your crawl budget and improve your site’s performance in general.
• URL Structure Optimization: Develop an apparent and concise URL structure that is understandable to both users and the search engine. Avoid overuse of parameters, more so if they carry non-essential information. Parameter Filtering: In case there is a must to use URL parameters, consider the use of tools and methodologies that will filter out all unwanted or redundant parameters before being released to search engines.
• Dynamic Content: Where there is dynamic content within the website, either do server-side rendering or use any JavaScript framework that can render static URLs for the search engines.
• Google Search Console: You can monitor how your website is performing and also identify URL parameter issues from your website using Google Search Console. It also provides detailed reporting on how the search engine crawls and indexes your website.

Advanced Implementation for Advanced Scenarios

• Hash Parameters: Parameter hashing should be done for sites with a high number of URL parameters, to create much shorter and more manageable URLs.
• Rewriting of URLs: Do server-side rewriting of the URLs to simple formats that are much friendlier and more SEO-effective by making the complex format parameters much easier.
• JavaScript-Based Solutions In some cases, you can use JavaScript to dynamically change URLs and even make them more SEO friendly, tread carefully with this though and ensure that search engines can access and index the content. Case Studies and Best Practices

Studying real-life case studies and some dos and don’ts, readers can gain an insight into URL parameter management. Thousands of successful websites have worked on strategies to correct URL parameter problems and to rank their websites higher in search engines.

Then again, there could be very helpful features that could be put into place using URL parameters; however, care should always be taken not to harm the parameters that could affect your site’s SEO. It is, therefore, with equal importance that you follow the strategies below to mitigate URL parameter problems and enhance your website’s SERP. ***.

Sources:

• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-gary-illyes-continues-to-warn-about-url-parameter-issues/524924/
• https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrKBVQ.dcVmcwQAP_K7HAx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNzZzMEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1725426239/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.searchenginejournal.com%2fgoogles-gary-illyes-continues-to-warn-about-url-parameter-issues%2f524924%2f/RK=2/RS=2mriMw1eXAdkWgdLkMpN9_3GymM-
• https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrKBVQ.dcVmcwQARPK7HAx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNzZzMEcG9zAzMEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1725426239/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.linkedin.com%2fpulse%2fgoogle-warns-url-parameters-create-crawl-issues-adaxiom-5hmlf/RK=2/RS=YgrV0rDm7bdk2PKe9sflx9LEMtI-
• https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrKBVQ.dcVmcwQARfK7HAx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNzZzMEcG9zAzQEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1725426239/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newdesigngroup.ca%2fnews%2fgoogle-warns-url-parameters-create-crawl-issues%2f/RK=2/RS=bZJrV.Ff2vktMo4fkI4nBKt5n3k-

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