Tests Show Google Does Not Always Respect the Setting in URL Parameters Tool

Any e-commerce site is probably familiar with the “URL Parameters Tool.” This is a feature in Google Search Console that SEOs have long used to help control the crawl of their websites. In this tool, you inform Google of what your different URL parameters do and how Google should crawl them (“Let Googlebot Decide”, “No URLs” etc). Google has provided extensive documentation on the different settings that can be configured and how the crawl commands interact with each other.

For the test certain URLs in Search Console URL Parameters Tool were set to crawl “No URLs.” But checking log files showered that Google was crawling those URLs.

While we’re not seeing overwhelming crawl activity, it is an indicator that Google might not always respect the rules in the URL Parameters tool. If you’re an e-commerce site, I would recommend not making assumptions about how Google’s crawling your parameters and check the log files to confirm crawl activity.