Parameter handling in Google webmaster tools - Suggestions to my Smugmug site

Parameter handling now in Google webmaster tools

It can be found under "Site configuration" - "Settings"

This new Parameter handling filter shows the importance Google places on duplicate content and the problems many websites face with regards to displaying the duplicate content accessible via different URLs.

Parameter suggestions on my Smugmug site.

Smugmug is my photo hosting site and it looks like Smugmug has a big problem with duplicate content.
This is what Google webmaster tools is saying about my Smugmug site:

Googlebot has crawled your site and made a few parameter suggestions.

ImageKey Suggested: Ignore (This parameter is a duplicate or contains invalid characters.)
ImageID Suggested: Ignore (This parameter is a duplicate or contains invalid characters.)
Page Suggested: Ignore (This parameter is a duplicate or contains invalid characters.)

+ Add parameter - Found parameters:
Type
Data
format
AlbumID
AlbumKey
Size
orient
rand
KeywordID
start
num
PageCount
firstLetter
NickName
CategoryID
how
Popular
height
Timeline
randomBits
width
settings
Year

Parameter handling explained

Google's Learn More say about Parameter Handling:

Dynamic parameters (for example, session IDs, source, or language) in your URLs can result in many different URLs all pointing to essentially the same content. For example, http://www.example.com/dresses?sid=12395923 might point to the same content as http://www.example.com/dresses. You can specify whether you want Google to ignore up to 15 specific parameters in your URL. This can result in more efficient crawling and fewer duplicate URLs, while helping to ensure that the information you need is preserved. (Note: While Google takes suggestions into account, we don't guarantee that we'll follow them in every case.)

I count 26 parameter suggestions from Google and I can only specify 15.

What Smugmug should do.

In a perfect world, Smugmug would take care of these duplicate pages by using any combination of the traditional methods:

• •301 redirect
• •Meta Canonical tags
• •Meta Robots tags
• •Robots.txt

And no sitemap either.

I hope that Smugmug one day will implement most or all recommendations from Google and other search engines.

How to avoid frustration.

Until then – do not install Google Webmaster tools on your Smugmug site and do not read Google’s other webmaster recommendations – You will only get very frustrated.

The very best solution might be to avoid using Smugmug as your photo hosting site..