How to handle Query Strings within a URL from an SEO Standpoint?

Question

I wrote a custom script on our site that appends a Query String to the Contact us Page URL with the product name the customer is asking about. For example, clicking the button redirects the user to this page:

https://www.domain.com/contact-us/?product_name=Cool Product Name Here

I use JS to grab the product name and put it in the contact us textbox so our reps know what product the customer is asking about.

I'm now getting hundreds of results in SEMRush, and I'd like to know the best way to handle these URL's from an SEO perspective.

Should I:

1. Figure out a way to add a Canonical tag to reference the Contact Us Page to these urls
2. Disavow these urls from being indexed in the first place

Despite the solution you recommend, what would be the best way to solve it?

Answer 1

Assuming the contact page is crawlable via the standard navigation, then I'd do both. If you don't block them from being crawled in your robots file then your crawl budget can be used up (both by Google and Semrush), depending on the size of your site.

A better way may be to try and not use URL parameters at all for this. Sending the parameter via POST seems the most obvious, though using cookies, or even just sending the last URL visited with the contact form's data may work as a solution, depending on your site's structure and requirements.

Answer 2

You should use a canonical URL so that Google and other search engines index only the main URL, avoiding duplication from URLs with parameters. This is a typical case where URL canonicalization helps.

Refer Google's official documentation about this https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/canonicalization