UTM Query Strings are creating a Duplicate Title problem

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UTM Query Strings are creating a Duplicate Title problem

corepartner

10:55 pm on Nov 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

Hi,

I have just checked my webmasertools account and under HTMl Suggestion Google is reporting that I am having duplicate TITLE TAGS.

Issue:

http://www.example.com/my-post/ - original post
http://www.example.com/my-post/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=statusnet - making duplicate content

The strange thing is that when I visited this http://www.example.com/my-post/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=statusnet , It showed me the exact copy of the http://www.example.com/my-post/ instead of 404 error which I was expecting.

I don't know why ?utm_source=twitterfeed& is appending to all my article pages and making them duplicate.

Please, help me to revolve this issue.

corepartner

11:57 pm on Nov 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

I have removed my site's feed from twitterfeed.com but it also did not solve the problem, its creating a massive duplicate content.

Please help.

tedster

12:16 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

You can resolve the problem easily with a 301 redirect to the URL without the UTM query string - and/or canonical link tag in your pages' <head> section - and/or a robots.txt Disallow rule for those query strings.

However, I don't think the situation is going to cause you any ranking or traffic problems, even as it is. The information in Webmaster Tools is there "for your information" and not as a notice that you have some dire problem - notice that it's listed under HTML "Suggestions". In this case, thousands, maybe millions of websites have the same situation.

corepartner

12:40 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Thanks for your response Tedster its very helpful for me, I also want to inform you that i am already using the canonical tags but sill having this issue.

any comment on it?

is there a way to apply 301 redirect at once to all my URLs whic are having this issue?

Disallow:/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=statusnet is it correct command for robots.txt?

Thanks

tedster

1:16 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

You need to include the asterisk (*) to get complete pattern matching, or else you are not disallowing anything but domain root plus query string [example.com?utm...). I'd probably go with just this much:

Disallow: /*?utm

With regard to the redirect, it's going to to depend on whether your site uses any query strings at all that you DO want indexed. But even more it's going to depend on your server. The question is better to ask in either our Apache [webmasterworld.com] or Windows IIS [webmasterworld.com] forums.

corepartner

1:45 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=statusnet

Is it correct now?, Thanks tedster & sorry for this basic question again :(

aakk9999

2:40 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Change the last line as shown below:

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /*?utm

corepartner

2:59 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Thanks aakk9999 :)

aakk9999

3:17 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Well, that is what Tedster already said in his post above mine. I just copied it....

corepartner

3:57 am on Nov 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Yeah, I said thanks to Tedster already :-) ....Tedseter is indeed a HERO among us :-)

AnkitMaheshwari

11:13 am on Nov 25, 2010 (gmt 0)

You can also use the parameter handling in the Google Webmaster under Setting tab to request Google to ignore the duplicate pages.