Tuesday, December 17, 2024<\/p>\n
\n We just published \n Faceted navigation is a great way to help users find what they need on your site, but it can \n In fact, faceted navigation is by far the most common source of overcrawl issues site owners \n Each filter combination in a faceted navigation generally creates a unique URL. For example:\n<\/p>\n \n Changing any parameter — \n If you have suggestions or need clarification about our
\n a new document about faceted navigation best practices<\/a>,
\n which was
\n originally published as a blog post<\/a>.
\n This is a summary of some of the important parts of the new documentation page.\n<\/p>\n
\n create an SEO nightmare if not implemented carefully. Why? Because it can generate a near-infinite
\n number of URLs, leading to:\n<\/p>\n\n
\n valuable to search users.\n <\/li>\n
\n new content.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n report to us, and in the vast majority of the cases the issue could’ve been avoided by following
\n some best practices. But let’s back up a little.\n<\/p>\nThe problem with URLs<\/h2>\n
product<\/code>, color<\/code>, or size<\/code>
\n — creates a new URL, leading to a potential explosion of URLs. And that’s the problem: a
\n virtually infinite number of new URLs waiting to be discovered. Let’s fix it.\n<\/p>\nTwo approaches<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
robots.txt<\/code> to disallow crawling.\n <\/li>\n#<\/code>) for filters, as search engines generally ignore them.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n
&<\/code> separator for URL parameters. \ud83d\udca9<\/span>
\n is not a good parameter separator character.\n <\/li>\n404<\/code> status code for filter combinations with no results.<\/li>\n
\n you have a single-page app<\/a>),
\n avoid redirecting empty results to a generic “not found” page.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nImportant considerations<\/h2>\n
\n
rel=\"canonical\"<\/code> to help consolidate signals by pointing variations
\n to a main page. This one takes time to get picked up.\n <\/li>\nrel=\"nofollow\"<\/code> on filter links can discourage crawling, but must be applied
\n consistently. As in, every link pointing to these pages, internal and external, must have a
\n rel=\"nofollow\"<\/code> attribute.\n <\/li>\n
\n discovery of new content.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n new document about faceted navigation best practices<\/a>,
\n use the feedback tool on that doc. If you are really into faceted navigation and wanna chat about
\n it with others, the
\n Search Central community<\/a> is the place
\n to go, but you can also find us on
\n LinkedIn<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n