Decide which filters deserve durable landing pages
The brass-lamp selection is a candidate landing page because it groups a recognizable product range. Price sorting and a precise temporary height filter serve different jobs and should not inherit that status. Approve each destination only after checking its assortment, buyer purpose and relationship to existing collection URLs.
Worked example — illustrative data.
| Filtered URL | Buyer task | Disposition |
|---|---|---|
| /lamps/brass/ | Browse brass lamps across styles | Candidate standalone collection |
| /lamps/?sort=price | Reorder the same products | No separate search destination |
| /lamps/?color=brass&height=47 | Narrow a temporary selection | Exclude from indexable set |
Copy the table for one department. Add product count, content owner, equivalent URL and the reason the shopper would bookmark the selection. Do not use product count alone as the rule. A small specialist collection can be useful; a large duplicate can still be redundant. If you approve a landing page, give it a clear heading, stable links and relevant buying detail. Then document how parameter versions relate to it.
Decision: Approve the brass collection if its assortment and buyer purpose survive review. Keep the precise-height combination as an on-site filter unless customer evidence supports a durable page.
Existing filter traffic changes the restriction decision: A filter may already receive useful traffic or links. Record those signals before restricting crawling. Robots blocking and removing a URL from search solve different problems; blocking can also prevent a crawler from reading page-level instructions.
Continue with Guides for stores, software teams and local businesses, Technical SEO services and Map store searches to products, collections or guides.
For faceted crawl and URL-control choices, see Google faceted navigation guidance (checked November 2026).