Why is Google adding ?srsltid= to all our indexed URLs after the Aug '24 update—anyone found a fix?

Question

We’re running into an issue with our website—Google is appending srsltid to all our indexed URLs. This started showing up after the August 2024 update. Oddly, URLs look normal on other search engines—this seems to be a Google-only situation.

Just to clarify: we’re not using Google Merchant Center, and we don’t sell any products. We’ve already blocked ?srsltid= in robots.txt, assuming it would sort itself out over time, but no changes yet.

Unfortunately, this has started impacting our organic traffic. Has anyone seen something similar or figured out a fix?

Answer 1

Post-August 2024 Google Core Update, ?srsltid= is appended to organic URLs, even for non-eCommerce sites without Google Merchant Center. This Google-specific bug causes duplicate content, crawl budget issues, and analytics skew, impacting your organic traffic. Robots.txt blocks don’t de-index existing URLs.

Fixes

1. Canonical Tags: Add <link rel="canonical" href="clean-url"> to all pages to prioritize non-parameterized URLs.
2. Search Console: De-index srsltid URLs via URL Removal Tool; set srsltid to “No effect” in URL Parameters.
3. Noindex URLs: Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> to srsltid URLs via JS:
   javascript:

   if (window.location.search.includes('srsltid')) { document.head.innerHTML += '<meta name="robots" content="noindex">'; }
4. Filter Analytics: Exclude srsltid in GA4 reports for accurate tracking.
5. Monitor: Track srsltid URLs in SEMrush/Ahrefs and server logs. Report to Google Search Central.

Next Steps: Focus on canonicals and GSC de-indexing to recover traffic. Monitor weekly and check r/SEO for Google’s updates. Hope this works!