Fixing Indexing Issues for Add to Cart and Filter Pages

E-commerce stores sometimes face indexing issues for subpages such as links containing ?add-to-cart or filter result pages. Google may crawl and index these pages, even though they are not valuable content pages, leading to a waste of the crawl budget allocated to your site.

Additionally, these links can cause duplicate content issues and dilute the search ranking power (PageRank) across many unnecessary links, ultimately resulting in poor performance for the e-commerce store and a decrease in sales.

In this article, we will explain several methods to address these issues and maintain your site’s indexing efficiency, so keep reading.

Contents

1 Measures to Address Indexing Issues for Add-to-Cart Pages and Filter Pages
2 How Takteek Can Help You Address Indexing Issues for Your E-Commerce Store Pages
3 Sources:

Measures to Address Indexing Issues for Add-to-Cart Pages and Filter Pages

E-commerce stores often face indexing issues for subpages like add-to-cart pages and filter pages, which negatively affect their rankings in search engine results. Below, we’ll outline practical measures to address this issue and improve your e-commerce store’s performance:

1. Using nofollow and noindex

One of the key steps is to tell search engines not to index add-to-cart pages and not to follow unnecessary filter links. This can be achieved using a combination of noindex and nofollow:

Using noindex

Meta tag noindex: This tag is placed in the <head> section of the HTML page to inform search engines not to index this page in search results. For example, you can add:

This line tells Google and other search engines not to index the current page. In the case of e-commerce stores, you may want to add this tag to pages like the cart page or checkout page or any page that appears after clicking the Add to Cart button. If you don’t have the ability to manually edit the template, you can use an SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math to set the page as noindex from the page settings in the dashboard.

If you want to do this manually through code, you can modify the header.php file in your WordPress theme and add a condition to check the page name to insert the noindex tag.

In most e-commerce store cases, the add-to-cart page is not an independent page but a result of adding a product to the cart. Therefore, it can be handled in other ways, which we will mention.

Using nofollow

Adding a nofollow tag: This tag is used to signal search engines not to follow this link or give it any weight regarding search ranking. For example, the “Add to Cart” button on product pages, which links to a URL like ?add-to-cart=123, can be modified to include rel=”nofollow” in its <a> link.

This means that when the search engine crawls this link, it will not follow it as an independent page and will not transfer ranking power through it.

In summary, prevent search engines from indexing the page and from following the link: the noindex tag stops the page from appearing in search results, and the nofollow tag stops the crawler from following the link to that page. This step alone significantly reduces the occurrence of issues with these links in indexing reports.

2. Setting Up robots.txt to Prevent Google from Crawling These Pages

The robots.txt file is another effective way to guide search engine bots on which parts of your site are allowed to crawl. You can use it to completely block crawling of URLs that include parameters such as ?add-to-cart or filter parameters. Its advantage is that it prevents the page from being loaded in the first place, so no crawl resources are wasted on it.

However, it should be used cautiously, as blocking a page in robots.txt does not necessarily remove it from the index if it’s known through external links; it only prevents crawling. Here’s how to set it up:

Open the robots.txt file located in the root directory of your site (if it’s not there, you can create it in the same folder as wp-content and wp-admin).
Add Disallow directives for the patterns you want to block. For example, to prevent search engines from crawling any URL containing ?add-to-cart or other shopping cart-related links, you can add the following:

User-agent: *

Disallow: *?add-to-cart=*

Disallow: *?remove_item=*

Disallow: *?removed_item=*

Disallow: *?undo_item=*

Always Use More Specific Directives to Block Unimportant Pages, and Avoid General Blocking that Might Hide Important Pages For example, avoid using “Disallow: /shop/” globally as it will block the entire product store from being indexed! Instead, target only the specific links as shown in the examples we’ve mentioned.
Test the robots.txt File: After modifying the file, use Google’s robots testing tool (within Search Console or external tools) to ensure you haven’t made any syntax errors and that important pages are still crawlable.

Using robots.txt in this way will help save crawl budget and prevent Google from attempting to access useless pages. However, remember: if there are high-quality external links pointing to a URL with blocked links, Google may index it anyway (at least as a link with no content). In this case, it’s advisable to use a canonical tag or additional solutions, as we’ll explain below, to ensure proper consolidation of signals and prevent losing any link equity.

Are you facing issues with Google crawling unnecessary pages on your site? Contact Takteek’s experts now to help you professionally set up your robots.txt file and achieve accurate indexing that boosts your store’s performance!

3. Using Canonical Tags

The rel=”canonical” tag is an important HTML tool to tell search engines the preferred (original) version of a page when multiple copies or URLs lead to similar content.

When to Use Canonical?

If a filter page doesn’t offer unique, indexable content (e.g., just rearranging or narrowing down existing items), make it point to the original page.
Do not use canonical on an add-to-cart page; it should generally be noindex as we mentioned, because the original page is not a content page users can visit directly. However, for filter pages or product sorting, canonical is preferred in many cases.

How to Implement: Add the <link rel=”canonical” href=”original-URL”> tag within the <head> section of the filter page. The “original-URL” should be the link to the main page you want indexed.

In the example of filtering by size, the base link would be the category page without filters (e.g., /shop/category/). So if the filter page URL is:

https://example.com/shop/t-shirts/?size=L&color=blue

Then this page should include:

This tag indicates that the canonical page for “Blue T-shirts Size L” is the general “T-shirts” page, and Google will index the main category page and pass any ranking value from the filter links to it. This way, we avoid creating dozens of duplicate pages for each filter combination.

Many SEO plugins automatically add the canonical tag for different versions. For example, Yoast developers have mentioned that URLs containing the ?add-to-cart parameter will automatically receive a canonical tag pointing to the product or main store page.

Additional Tips for Correctly Using Canonical:

Ensure all filter pages point to the same main category page. For example, don’t have a “Blue Color” filter page point to the “Size L” filter page. The goal is to consolidate the signal to the general, comprehensive page.
Do not use reverse canonical (e.g., from the homepage to a filter page), as this confuses search engines. Always prefer the page with the broader content as the canonical.
When using canonical for filter pages, it’s also a good idea to exclude these pages from the XML Sitemap and only include the canonical page. This ensures Google focuses on the main pages.

4. Utilizing Google Search Console Settings

Google Search Console provides several tools and reports that help you manage how Google interacts with your site’s pages. Here are the main ways you can benefit from it regarding ?add-to-cart pages and filter pages:

Monitor Indexing Reports (Index Coverage)

You can monitor indexing reports through the “Excluded Pages” or “Not Indexed” sections. This will show if there are a large number of URLs containing parameters (such as add-to-cart or filters) that have been detected. For example, you might find an alert titled “Alternate page with appropriate canonical tag,” meaning Google found a page like ?add-to-cart but did not index it because it saw the canonical tag pointing to another page.

Removals Tool

If you discover that ?add-to-cart or filter pages have appeared in search results somehow (for example, if search bots crawled them before preventive measures were applied), you can use the temporary removal tool in Search Console to quickly hide them. You’ll find this tool under “Index > Removals.” Request a temporary removal of the URL by entering the full link (or pattern if it repeats often).

This removal lasts for about 90 days and is a temporary solution while you ensure the page is properly blocked or set to noindex so that Google does not try to index it again. Remember that this tool does not replace the fundamental solutions (noindex/robots.txt) but complements them for quickly removing unwanted results.

URL Inspection Tool

When making any changes (like adding a noindex tag or modifying robots.txt), it’s a good idea to manually test one of the filter or add-to-cart pages using the “URL Inspection” feature in Search Console. It will show you if the page is “Excluded” and the reason (e.g., “Excluded by noindex tag” or “Blocked by robots file”), confirming that your settings are working correctly. You can also request “Indexing” for a page after ensuring its settings (e.g., the canonical category page) to make sure Google focuses on it.

Adjust Crawl Rate

In the advanced settings of Search Console (under site settings), you can no longer set a low crawl rate as freely as before, but Google usually manages the crawl rate automatically based on your site’s response. Reducing the number of unimportant pages using the methods above will automatically help direct Google’s crawl toward your important pages.

If you block crawling for these pages in robots.txt, they may show up as excluded due to robots. The goal is to reach a state where ?add-to-cart pages and all filter pages are either correctly excluded or not listed in reports at all, while product and main category pages are indexed normally. Regularly using Search Console (e.g., every few weeks) will help you quickly detect any errors or misconfigurations in your settings.

Improving Internal Link Structure

Internal links play a significant role in how Google crawls your site and distributes “ranking power” between pages. If the link structure directs Google to unnecessary links too frequently (like every possible filter combination), it will waste crawl budget and reduce focus on important pages. Here are some techniques to improve this:

Reduce Unnecessary Links in Menus: Review sections of your site such as the main navigation menu and footer. Ensure there are no links leading to filter pages, custom search pages, or secondary pages (like the “add to cart” page) through these static menus. Keep the permanent navigation links focused on the most important pages (main pages and main categories).
Use nofollow Links for Filters on General Pages: If a category page displays multiple filter options as clickable links, you can make these links nofollow, as mentioned earlier. This way, even if all filter options appear, search engines won’t treat them as crawl-worthy links. Instead, they will just be options for users without impacting internal PageRank distribution.
Limit Advanced Filter Visibility for Search Engines: An advanced method is to use AJAX to load filter results without reloading the entire page. The site fetches results via JavaScript and displays them to the user without changing the page URL to a new one.
Use Hierarchical Breadcrumbs: Ensure breadcrumb links are activated on your site, especially for WooCommerce stores. These links (e.g., Home > Category > Product) help organize the site’s structure, ensuring related pages are connected hierarchically. For filters, ensure filter pages are linked to their parent category page via a clear breadcrumb. This ensures that any ranking power for a filter page gets passed to its parent page through this link.
Choose Only Important Filters: Not all filter options are of equal value. From an SEO perspective, some filters might be worth having as separate indexable pages (if they have high search demand, for example), while others may not. Try to reduce the number of filters or filter combinations that generate pages. Choose the most useful for users and the most searched. For example, you may keep the “color” and “brand” filters because they are valuable for searchers but eliminate creating separate links for “rating” or “availability” filters because they are less important.
Don’t Pass PageRank to Secondary Pages: A general rule: any page marked as noindex should not receive link power. Practically, this means if a page is noindex, it’s better to remove any clear internal links pointing to it (unless necessary). For example, the login page or the cart page is usually noindex; make its link either hidden from search engines (e.g., within a script) or at least nofollow.

Want to improve your site’s ranking and increase the power of your important pages with Google? Takteek’s experts are ready to help you improve your internal link structure for your store. Contact us and give your site a strong boost in search results!

How Takteek Can Help You Address Indexing Issues for Your E-Commerce Store Pages

At Takteek Agency, we have SEO experts ready to help you identify and address indexing issues for secondary pages, such as add-to-cart and filter pages. We conduct a comprehensive review of your site and implement best technical practices to ensure that only your important pages are focused on. Contact us today to get a clear action plan that ensures optimal visibility in Google search results.

Choose Takteek and take your e-commerce store to the next level!

In conclusion, managing the indexing of add-to-cart pages and filter pages is an important step to ensure excellent performance for your e-commerce store in search engines. If you are looking for comprehensive solutions to improve your site’s visibility, don’t hesitate to contact the Takteek team, specializing in SEO, and get a free consultation today!

Fixing Indexing Issues for Add-to-Cart Pages and Filter Pages in E-Commerce Stores