: How to avoid multiple results in google search for same page if some results contain utm_source parameters? We have an old domain we are slowly turning off and are currently redirecting pages
We have an old domain we are slowly turning off and are currently redirecting pages via 301 redirects to relevent urls on a totally different domain and site, the reason for this being that the brand changed so the name of the domain and everything had to be altered.
The rewrite rules I created include utm_source and other utm_ parameters so that we can gauge accurate results in google analytics.
However now we are starting to see some "split results" in google search... ie pages on our destination new domain that include the utm parameters in the search results. The same pages sometimes appear in google index without the utm parameters. Clearly this must be due to our 301 redirects where googlebot has returned to re-index the old domain.
What is the best way of avoiding this doubling of indexing?
I've read that you can control this to some degree in the "URL Parameters" page within the google webmaster tools. But is this enough? It's not completely clear to me if setting a parameter to "Representative URL"s means that it will be ignored completely or still appear in search results. You can see that I've manually changed this setting although still awaiting to see if google counts any change in indexing as a result of it.
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Setting those parameters to "Representative URL" will mean that Google will index the version without the parameter in most cases. The only exception would be in a case when it doesn't find a link to the version without parameters. In that case it might still choose to index a URL with the parameters.
A better solution to your problem is to implement canonical link elements on all your pages in the <head> section. Set the canonical href to the version without the tracking parameters:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/my-page.html">
The canonical link tag is meant for situations like this. You can't redirect to remove the parameters without breaking tracking. The parameters don't change the contents of the page.
This should never happen. The only way for a page to show up in search with tracking parameters is because campaign parameters have been used in internal links.
Campaign tagging is exclusively meant for external links that point back to your website. I could go into all of the reasons why campaign tracking can be incredibly valuable for marketers, but the bottom line is that utm_source parameters allow a website owner or marketer to change or reassign the source and medium data.
So let's say that you tagged an external link to look something like this: www.yourwebsite.com/100s-of-ways-to-trash-analytics-data/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=sample+campaign
A user see's this link and clicks it from a social media management tool such as hootsuite. Because the source was modified or "reassigned" to be facebook (utm_source=facebook.com), facebook will now appear as the source (vs. hootsuite). Furthemore, instead of the visit showing up as a referral, it will appear as social because that is how the medium was assigned (i.e. utm_medium=social).
So for whatever reason, some misguided marketers add campaign paramters to their internal banners, and even the navigation bar and/or within links in the footer of the site.
So let's say that someone reads you profile page on stackexchange.com, and clicks to your site, followed by clicking the banner that inadvertently, intentionally, or ignorantly has campaign paramters attached to it. Upon clicking the banner and landing the contact page, that visitor no longer shows up as coming from Stackexchange.com - Rather the end result is that the referral is from your own site. It has been overwritten.
Here is what you need to do:
Option A: If you a member of Moz, they have a decent Crawl Tool
Option B: If you aren't a MoxPro member, Try out Screaming Frog
Visit ScreamingFrog and Download the software
Enter your website's URL and initiate a crawl
Once your crawl is complete, click the "internal" tab, and filter by "utm_" to see URL's which have been tagged with campaign parameters. You technically should not see any URL's upon executing this task.
If you do happen to see URL's after filtering the results, then you have one or more pages on your website linking to pages tagged with campaign parameters.
Find all of the pages which are linking to utm_ tagged pages. To do this, click on a URL in the top area, and chose the "links" tab towards the bottom area of the window. Notice the "from" column, as it should show all of your internal pages that linked to tagged URL(s).
Take a look into Google Analytics. Make sure you don't have ANY URL's that aren't being tagged properly. If you have tagged appropriately, you will not find campaign parameters (i.e. utm_) showing up within ANY content reports.
Lastly, I always recommend following Google's Advice when it comes to all things online. Here you can find information about URL mapping, which includes how to update internal links (see section 2 under the subsection "Update all URL details."
I'm not sure how far along this process you are, but relying on analytics may not be the most trustworthy way to go - but without more information, there is just know way to advise you any further.
Best of luck!
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