How should I handle multiple links ot the same page with different Query Strings
- by RandomBen
In the website I am working on, there is a product page with 8 tabs on it, showing different aspects of the product. There are quick links on other pages within the site that take you to the page and to a specific link specified by a query string.
For example the base page would be www.example.com/Product1. And then there are links like this:
www.example.com/Product1?tab=CADDrawing
www.example.com/Product1?tab=Schematics
www.example.com/Product1?tab=Reviews
My concern is that Google sees each of these links as a different URL but they aren't and the data on the page is 100% the same. Is there any easy way to make it so Google either knows that www.example.com/Product1 is the base page or doesn't follow the links with Query Strings?
I thought about using rel="nofollow" but that seems like it would actually hurt my page ranking. Most of the websites, including Googles on webmaster pages, is unclear.
The other option is to add the rel="canonical" to the pages that have a query string but not to the base page. Does that succeed in stopping all of the noisy links?