Canonical or noindex for filter pages? Which one?

Canonical or noindex for filter pages? Which one?

'Q: For my faceted filter URLs, should I use a canonical to the main category or just noindex them?'

Short answer: Canonical when the filtered page is a near-duplicate of the parent; noindex,follow when it's genuinely thin but you still want the links crawled.

The longer version: A canonical is a suggestion Google can ignore — and it routinely does when your filter page has different content (a real /shoes?color=red set Google may decide deserves its own ranking). So canonical leaks. Noindex is a directive: it actually removes the page. Use canonical only when filter output is essentially identical to the parent. Use noindex,follow when it's a low-value combo you never want indexed but want PageRank flowing through.

Example: /laptops?sort=price — canonical to /laptops (same products, reordered). /laptops?brand=dell+ram=32gb+color=silver — noindex,follow (a 3-way combo nobody searches).

Rule of thumb: Same products, different order = canonical. Few products, niche combo = noindex.

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