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Official statement

To prevent the crawling of certain URLs with parameters, robots.txt is preferable to the URL Parameters tool because it works for all crawlers, not just Google. The URL Parameters tool is only useful in very specific and complex cases. Using canonical tags is often a better alternative.
35:52
🎥 Source video

Extracted from a Google Search Central video

⏱ 1h01 💬 EN 📅 27/01/2022 ✂ 18 statements
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📅
Official statement from (4 years ago)
TL;DR

Robots.txt is more effective than the URL Parameters tool for blocking the crawl of URLs. It is compatible with all crawlers and avoids overly complex use cases.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Est-ce que robots.txt bloque complètement l'indexation ?
Non, robots.txt empêche le crawl mais n'interdit pas l'indexation si une URL est déjà connue ou référencée ailleurs.
L'outil URL Parameters est-il totalement inutile alors ?
Pas totalement. Il reste pertinent pour les usages très spécifiques, mais rares, où une gestion fine des paramètres est nécessaire.
Quels sont les types de paramètres à bloquer avec robots.txt ?
Ciblez surtout les paramètres de tracking, de recherche ou de tri qui génèrent des URLs redondantes.
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