# Filter pages

Category: [E-Commerce SEO](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/e-commerce-seo/) › [Shop pages & navigation](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/e-commerce-seo/shop-pages-navigation/) · Also known as: filtered category pages, faceted URLs

**Filter pages**, in online shop SEO, are category or list pages that get their own URL after a visitor selects filters such as color, size or brand, usually through URL parameters. A few filters can produce a very large number of near-identical URLs.

## Why do filter pages matter for SEO?

Google says parameter-based faceted navigation can create nearly infinite URL spaces. Crawlers only recognize the low value of these URLs after many requests. That uses server resources and delays the discovery of new, useful URLs.

Google distinguishes two cases:

- **Filter URLs should not appear in search.** Google recommends blocking them with robots.txt or using URL fragments for filters. It calls `rel="canonical"` and `rel="nofollow"` generally less effective in the long term.
- **Filter URLs may be indexed.** Google recommends the `&` character to separate parameters, a consistent filter order and a 404 status for combinations without results.

Whether a combination should be indexable depends on whether people search for it (assessment).

## Example

```txt
https://example.com/shoes?color=green&size=42
```

To keep such URLs from being crawled, robots.txt can disallow them:

```robots
user-agent: Googlebot
disallow: /*?*color=
disallow: /*?*size=
```

Four filters with nine values each and a "not set" option add up to 10,000 URL combinations for a single category. (Calculated example.)

*Diagram: How filters multiply URLs.* Own calculation example. Three filters are enough to turn one category into thousands of URLs. Google describes two approaches, depending on whether the filtered pages are meant for search.

## Related terms

- [Faceted navigation](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/faceted-navigation/index.md)
- [URL parameters](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/url-parameters/index.md)
- [Canonical tag](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/canonical-tag/index.md)
- [Crawl budget](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/crawl-budget/index.md)
- [Index bloat](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/index-bloat/index.md)

## Sources

- [Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/faceted-navigation)
- [Pagination and incremental page loading – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/pagination-and-incremental-page-loading)

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Last updated: October 8, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/filter-pages/