SEO problem: Filter in collection pages creates it's own URL - how to get rid of this?

[Drops]

Hey there guys,

My shopify shop creates a new URL for every filter. That leads to that some URL with a filter in it gets a better google ranking than the main URL. From a SEO perspective I only want the main URL to rank in Google.

this is the main URL:
https://drops.wine/collections/naturwein-favorits

this is the URL with a filter:
https://drops.wine/collections/naturwein-favorits/weiss

My question is: is it a good idea to get rid of the URL with filters and second, how can I do so?

Thanks guys!
Chris

[Gabe]

Hey Chris! @Drops 

Thanks for the context and the links! Plus you have reached the German community here and we can chat about this in German if you prefer. But English is fine too... 😉

Your described URL and Google ranking issue is indeed a complex one and requires a closer look.

• That leads to that some URL with a filter in it gets a better google ranking than the main URL

Can I ask where are you seeing this ranking warning - is that in your Search Console or on Google Search itself? If the latter, do you have a link I can test? If you want, you can ask Google to recrawl your website again via Google Search Console, as you can see here (more on that below).

Essentially, Shopify has a very effective SEO system out-of-the-box and we generally recommend not to interfere with it in order to avoid disturbing the built-in Shopify SEO ecosystem. See more on improving your SEO in our great help doc here.

So, primarily, what people fear is that different things in the theme can create duplicate URLs for each product which might reduce the SEO efficacy. If you add a product to a product page then it gets a specific URL assigned by the system based on the Shopify Ruby-on-Rails platform. If you add the product to a collection and even to more than one collection then it also receives different URLs for each one that you might fear will appear on Google.

And now you are saying that if you filter for a product it also gets a unique URL on Google search, is that correct? Basically, the way the Shopify SEO system works is that the meta descriptions that you have added to the backend product data, will be the primary "influencer" of your product on Google ranking and search. The other main and effective influencer is adding "alt text to media" in your product data. Have you done that Chris?

Shopify therefore works with canonical URLs that cancel out any duplicates with time but this can take a bit. If "duplicate warnings" are still showing in your Google Search Console then your best bet is to resubmit your sitemap. 

You can, however, use the noindex to hide certain URLs from Google but this is a messy process and not suitable for the many "filter" URLs. See more on that here.

Let me know if that helps!

[byteriver]

Hi @Drops ... Get all rankings from your Sub-URLs - I recommend not to play with Google. I hope that helps 😉

[Mamacita]

Hello. Can you please tell me which module you used to create Friendly urls for filters?

[SEOProStaff]

Hi @Drops ,

Creating a new URL for every filter, as seen in your Shopify shop, is common and can indeed lead to SEO challenges, such as filter URLs outranking the main collection URL. To address this, consider implementing canonical tags to point search engines towards the main URL as the primary resource. This tells Google which version of the content is the most authoritative and should appear in search results, helping to prevent duplicate content issues and consolidate page ranking signals.

SEOPro can assist by auditing your Shopify products and collections for SEO issues and recommending optimizations for your main and filtered URLs. While SEOPro focuses on optimizing meta titles, descriptions, and more, it indirectly supports your SEO strategy by ensuring your site's overall SEO health is strong, which is beneficial when dealing with canonicalization and other SEO challenges.

Full disclosure: We are the developer of this app.