Forum Moderators: phranque
www.mysite.com/mypage.htm?affid=xyz
If the SE spider follows this, it would see the same content regardless of affid that is supplied. This has no value to me, and furthermore, may penalize me for duplicate content.
Since I really want SE to index these pages WITHOUT the affid parameter, how would I creatively use meta robot to make this happen.
The solution that is coming to my mind is to put a link to the same page, without affid, on the page that the spider reaches, and then use "NOINDEX, FOLLOW". Is this the correct solution?
In the above solution, the link without affid would not have any use to regular users. Would I cloak it so it does not show up for regular users?
Thanks in advance,
ezGuy
I think Google can figure out that the affid is a tracking id code, and should ignore it as far as any duplicate content penalty concerns go.
Any solution using hidden links or cloaking may be worse than the original problem.
Are you finding multiple page listings with different affid's in Google's search results?
Jim
Are you finding multiple page listings with different affid's in Google's search results?
For some reason, I am currently not favored by Google, so there are not that many of my pages, or incoming links, which show up.
If there is no worry about penalties related to duplication, then the only thing left is dilution of incoming links (due to varying URL's).. but if we consider themes, then this should theoratically not matter.
ezGuy
We used to use a dynamic urls to set source IDs for certain things (newsletter referrals, etc.) and never had problems with duplicate pages. As jdMorgan said, most SEs simply strip everything after the "?" if it comes after a .htm. You can pass just about any tracking parameter you'd like to this way.
And if you really want these pages to be spidered why not just set up a simple site map? Link to it from your home page or even a footer on every page and SEs will eat it up. The easier you make it...
Jim
