There is a copy of our website that is ranking. How can I let Google know our website is the authentic site?

[npuffer79]

I just found another copy of my old website and have no way to take it down.  Unfortunately, it's ranking so he didn't place it as a nofollow.  (My boss hired someone to redevelop our website before I came on board and never finished the project).

So, could this be hurting us?  I tried to look to see if we were being penalized and couldn't find that we were.

Also, ever since we migrated to a new domain name,  our ranking is tumbling.  I've redirected properly and tested to make sure they're resolving correctly and they are.  I have no idea what is going on.  We've virtually lost all ranking.  Any help would be much appreciated.

[JordanLowry]

The technical term is a Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There's a bit more info on this page to get you started: https://support.google.com/legal/answer/1120734. It's been a while since I've filed one of these but let me know if you run into trouble I'm happy to help.

Also, I'd only use this as a last option. I'd still reach out to the company and see if they will no index the other site.

Best of luck

[npuffer79]

Jordan, thank you so much for the insight.  I'm going to go through each step you presented.   Which channel would you recommend contacting Google through if the owner of that domain isn't willing to cooperate?  Thanks again for your help.

[JordanLowry]

Sorry to hear you have to come on board and clean up someone else's mess :/.

The first thing I would do is reach out to the development company and request they remove the extra site. It's very likely it's having an impact on your organic visibility.  If that doesn't work you could request Google remove that website from its index based on a violation of intellectual copyright laws.

The second thing I would do is a detailed audit of all your redirects. It's likely there could be a few key missing redirects in there somewhere.

Request a copy of all redirects within your Htaccess file and make sure: they are topically relevant(think 1:1 matches no blanket redirects), and no redirect chains present.

Also, go into your GA and pull the top 100 or so pages with any sort of historical organic traffic and make sure they are redirecting properly.

Another thing which I'm sure you're aware of but whenever you migrate domain names there can sometimes be an initial drop in organic rankings.

Best of luck