URL: Parameters

URLs that include parameters such as ‘?’ or ‘&’.

This isn’t an issue for Google or other search engines to crawl unless at significant scale, but it’s recommended to limit the number of parameters in a URL which can be complicated for users, and can be a sign of low value-add URLs.

How to Analyse in the SEO Spider

View URLs with this issue in the URL tab and ‘Parameters’ filter, and export all URLs using the ‘Export’ button. Use the lower ‘Inlinks’ tab to view pages that link to them.

What Triggers This Issue

This issue is triggered when a URL includes parameters such as ‘?’ or ‘&’. For example:

https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/product?color=blue&size=medium

How To Fix

Where possible use a static URL structure without parameters for key indexable URLs.

However, changing URLs is a big decision, and often it’s not worth changing them for SEO purposes alone.

If URLs are changed, then appropriate 301 redirects must be implemented.