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Gary Illyes, an analyst at Google, recently emphasized a significant challenge for web crawlers: URL parameters.
In a recent episode of Google’s Search Off The Record podcast, Illyes detailed how these parameters can lead to an infinite number of URLs for the same page, resulting in crawl inefficiencies.
He delved into the technical implications, the impact on SEO, and potential solutions, while also reflecting on Google’s previous strategies and suggesting possible future improvements.
This information is particularly important for large websites and e-commerce platforms.
Illyes pointed out that URL parameters can generate what is essentially an infinite number of URLs for a single page.
He elaborates:
“Technically, you can append an almost infinite—well, effectively infinite—number of parameters to any URL, and the server will simply disregard those that don’t change the response.”
This poses a challenge for search engine crawlers.
Even though these variations may lead to the same content, crawlers cannot determine this without visiting each URL. As a result, this can lead to inefficient crawl resource usage and potential indexing problems.
This issue is particularly common on e-commerce websites, where URL parameters are frequently used to track, filter, and sort products.
For example, a single product page might have several URL variations to account for different color options, sizes, or referral sources.
Illyes noted:
“Since you can simply add URL parameters, it complicates everything during the crawling process. When you’re crawling properly by ‘following links,’ everything becomes significantly more complex.”
Google has been dealing with this challenge for years. Previously, they provided a URL Parameters tool in Search Console, allowing webmasters to specify which parameters were essential and which could be ignored.
However, this tool was discontinued in 2022, raising concerns among SEOs about how to effectively manage this issue moving forward.
Although Illyes didn’t provide a concrete solution, he hinted at possible strategies:
Google is considering ways to manage URL parameters, possibly by creating algorithms to detect redundant URLs. Illyes suggested that clearer communication from website owners about their URL structure could be beneficial. “We might advise them to use a specific method to block that URL space,” he remarked.
He also mentioned the potential for greater use of robots.txt files to guide crawlers, noting, “Robots.txt is surprisingly flexible in what it can achieve.”
This discussion carries several important implications for SEO:
Original news from SearchEngineJournal
