Multiple slashes in URL

Technical Q&A
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Topic summary

Issue: Google Search Console is surfacing collection URLs with excessive trailing slashes in the query string (e.g., ?order=bestseller///////////), raising duplicate-content concerns.

Current mitigation: A canonical tag points these variants to the clean collection URL, reducing SEO risk, but the root cause is unknown.

Likely cause: Malformed link generation in the Shopify theme, potentially a recursive internal link issue where code repeatedly appends slashes/parameters. General URL-structure generation problems are also possible.

Recommended actions:

  • Contact Shopify Support or the theme developer for diagnosis and a fix.
  • Use Chrome DevTools, the theme editor, and a crawler (e.g., Screaming Frog) to locate the source of bad links.
  • Patch the theme code, verify links render correctly, then monitor.
  • Expect Google Search Console to take days to weeks to drop the bad URLs after the fix.

Status: Unresolved. Canonicals help, but addressing the theme-level cause is advised.

Notes: “Canonical” = preferred URL signal to search engines; no attachments involved.

Summarized with AI on December 25. AI used: gpt-5.
3

My guess is this is a “recursive internal link issue” within theme code.

Might be an easy fix from support or the theme seller, so worth a try there as a first port of call.

But sometimes these issues can be difficult to pinpoint. There are a few tricks but better suited for a developer or tech SEO.

Process would be roughly:

  1. Find problem
    Using things like Chrome devtools, theme editor, ScreamingFrog etc
  2. Tweak theme code in Shopify admin theme editor
  3. Test the fix looks like it’s working.
  4. Wait days to weeks for Search Console to stop discovering and eventually forget these URLs