Several Parameters Indexed in URL

[helenp]

Hi, since some week ago I changed my searcher on the web from post to get, and now I have in webmaster tool html improvements 2 pages with same title and description.

I suppose that is that somebody linked to the searchpage with those parameters and google indexed them, maybe by sharing in facebook.
There are at least 7 parameters in the url, and none appears in webmaster tool parameters page.
Should I add those parameters to webmaster tools and tell google to index only one page or that the content may be different?
Or should I just dont care about it.
Of course as it is a url from a search the content is not identic, only the page itself but not the searchcontent.
Thanks,

[tedster]

The key is that Google doesn't want to index site search results. I'd suggest using robots.txt to Disallow whatever the main URL for your results page is.

[helenp]

I'd suggest using robots.txt to Disallow whatever the main URL for your results page is.

Good idea, forgot about robots.txt
Thanks

[phranque]

i would suggest adding a meta robots noindex element to your search pages and allow them to be crawled.

starting about 6 months ago google changed the way search results snippets are shown for urls excluded from crawling.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4504193.htm#msg4504374

A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more

the only good reasons i can think of for excluding crawlers with robots.txt is to preserve crawl budget and to operate honeypots.

[helenp]

i would suggest adding a meta robots noindex element to your search pages and allow them to be crawled.

starting about 6 months ago google changed the way search results snippets are shown for urls excluded from crawling.

Yes you are right, as a matter of fact should be better on all pages excluded, however its more practic using robots.

[simonlondon]

I thought just to clarify a common confusion. Google Webmaster Tool Parameter setting is used to help Google better CRAWL your site, and it has nothing to do with your URL's been indexed or not.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Yes you are right, as a matter of fact should be better on all pages excluded, however its more practic using robots.

When it comes to search, sometimes what's "most practical" and how something "needs to be done", from our side, are at opposition with each other but SEs make the rules on how they handle situations, so "needs to be done" in a specific way to have the effect we want is what we have to do.

[helenp]

Mod's note: original title submitted for this post, before I spliced it to this thread, was...

parameters tool in GWT, duplicated content again?

-----

Hi, Am a bit nervous as I had problems with duplicated content and finally looks as google started to drop pages indexed and most of the 404 errors.

The indexed pages dropped with about 150 pages, and the 404s are only 253 when there were thousands of them.
Today I have 320 more indexed pages than I had on the 19/5.

I have changed some pages such as the searcher and contactform from post to get, so I guess google are indexing parameter.
None of these parameters appear in GWT, should I add them manually or should I wait until they appear and tell google what to do with them?
Strange, the ever crawled pages only increased with about 50 pages.
Thanks
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:59 pm (utc) on Jun 2, 2013]

[helenp]

Thanks,
did not remember this post,
just checked and I have this in my search page:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
and also on the contact page wich uses get.
so why all these pages?

for not long ago google started to index a parameter in my chat wich I had for long, when I saw it in GWT I stated is as url representive .
In this google added referrer as a parameter,
shouldnt be this as I I added as ulr representive for weeks ago:
locale=en&amp;style=original&amp;url='+escape(document.location.href)+'&amp;referrer='+escape(document.referrer),

[helenp]

The numbers of indexed pages keeps raising, another hundred indexed....
Cant see anything in parameter, noting in improvements html.
Is theree somewhere to see last indexed pages to find out what is indexed?

[helenp]

Had a check in google site:
and found a page for contactform indexed with parameter id=widget, however I have no index on page
I also saw of the chat parameters page indexed, wich I put in GWT to only have one representive.
When I clic on the indexed page, I do get a "page" wich is a php file for the chat
it is indexed with a url like this:

http://www.mysite.com/chatprogram/client.php?locale=en&style=original&url=http%3A//www.mysite.com/&referrer=

[helenp]

I found them, I have 567 pages indexed for a parameter for my chat, on the pages it is linked to the chat like this:

<a href="/chatprogram/client.php?locale=sv&amp;style=original" target="_blank"
onclick="if(navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('opera') != -1 &amp;&amp;
window.event.preventDefault) window.event.preventDefault();this.newWindow
= window.open('/chatprogram/client.php?locale=sv&amp;style=original&amp;url='+escape(document.location.href)+'&amp;
referrer='+escape(document.referrer), 'chatprogram', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,location=0,status=1,menubar=0,width=640,height=480,resizable=1');
this.newWindow.focus();this.newWindow.opener=window;return false;"><img src="/chatprogram/b.php?i=sve&amp;lang=sv" border="0" width="158" height="33" alt=""></a>

Google has indexed as a parameter referrer=

For many weeks ago I stated in url parameters in WMT to only have a representative url.
I have had this chat for long and suddenly for some weeks ago that parameter appeared.

I checked and in GMT it states:
they are checking 334 url.

Also the paremeters local and style are in GWT with about 300 but those I added url reprentive in December, and the amount of indexed pages has starting for a week or a bit more.

Is this something to worry about? I suppose Google will drop those pages as I have set only a representative url should be crawled or indexed,

its strange the number keeps raising, today I have about another 50 pages more
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:29 am (utc) on Jun 5, 2013]
[edit reason] fixed side-scroll and formatting [/edit]