pagination and mod rewrite

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by vijee, Jul 30, 2008.

0
  1. #1
    I have a jewelry site for which certain products require pagination to
    display them all.
    I have used mod rewrite to point to the first page.
    example.
    http://www.whitefirejewelry.com/antique-style-engagement-ring.html

    If you see at the the bottom I have pagination links, and they are
    pointing to the
    original URL, not the rewritten URL, which is because they are
    programmatically
    generated.

    The question I have is, will google find the page through both the
    links and will consider
    that as duplicate pages and penalize SERP or give it low ranking ?
    Suppose if I use robots.txt to block the original complex URL (
    http://www.whitefirejewelry.com/shop_subcategory.html?cat=Engagement%...[di]&max=18&startAt=1)
    from the robots, will it affect the page being picked up the
    rewritten URL which is http://www.whitefirejewelry.com/antique-style-engagement-ring.html

    I am trying to find how to optimize this, because none of my pages are
    getting good SERP they deserve, I think.

    Thanks a bunch
     
    vijee, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  2. thenotself

    thenotself Peon

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    #2
    When I look at your website, I don't see the pagination links as a problem. Google will index the content on each page separately.

    http://www.google.ca/search?q=site:...ls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=bxg&filter=1

    Shows that Google is indexing your site, but it's indexing the product pages for the term "Two Tone Yellow Diamond" instead of the listing on page 1. If you remove the filter

    http://www.google.ca/search?q=site:...ls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=bxg&filter=0

    Then you see your listing page with the SEF url AND the page without the SEF url listed. Google filters them out as duplicate content because they are 2 pages with the same content.

    For this reason, , your pagination links should use the SEF urls or your shouldn't use SEF urls at all. As soon as you use an SEF url like http://www.whitefirejewelry.com/antique-style-engagement-ring.html and the exact same page's non-SEF url http://www.whitefirejewelry.com/sho...at=Antique Style Diamond Engagement Rings&di=[di]&max=18&startAt=1 then Google gets you for duplicate content. You have to use one or the other.

    Your solution of using robots.txt to block the non-SEF url might work, but it will take time. I think a better solution is to eliminate the non-SEF url from your code, and combine it with the robots.txt solution.
     
    thenotself, Jul 30, 2008 IP
  3. vijee

    vijee Peon

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    #3
    So you think that duplicate URLs ( SEF and non SEF) together can cause problems. I just needed to confirm that and now I need to find a way to
    program the first pagination to match my SEF url. I think the 2nd or 3rd pagination indices
    dont matter, because the 1 page of my pagination will be the only exact
    duplicate page of the SEF url. You agree ??

    THanks again for your time and feedback. I appreciate it.
     
    vijee, Jul 30, 2008 IP