What's the best SEO tactics when you have a dedicated web address pointing to a page on a different site?
-
Hope someone can help with a question I've got about sorting out some duplicate content issues.
To simplify the question, imagine there is a website a.com which has a page a.com/newslettersignup. In addition to the a.com domain, there is also a different web address, ashortcut.com, which points to a.com/newslettersignup.
ashortcut.com is the web address that is advertised in marketing material etc.
So what is the best way then to tell Google etc. that ashortcut.com is the preferred URL for the page which sits at a.com/newslettersignup?
The advice I've read about the canonical tag, for example, doesn't cover this exact scenario so although it can support cross-domain information, I'm not sure if that's the best route to follow.
Thanks!
-
Cheers Nick. It's more the SEO benefit rather than the stats that I'm interested in, but that's a handy reminder to bear in mind stats too!
-
Thanks Antonio. In this case. ashortcut.com has keywords in its domain name whilst a.com doesn't, so that's a shame but good to know there's nothing that can be done.
-
Hi Mark,
You could use a canonical tag on the shortcut URL but what I would really suggest you do is redirect the shortcut with a tracking parameter. This way all your traffic stays on your main site but you can still track your marketing efforts.
example: ashortcut.com --> 301 redirects --> a.com/newslettersignup?ashortscut.com
just make sure that the a.com/newslettersignup URL self canonicals so that any parameter based URLs don't get indexed as duplicate content.
-
If I understood, ashortcut.com always redirect to some a.com page. If this is correct, unfortunatelly Google will rank a.com page instead ashortcut.com, as the ashortcut.com page is a redirection pointing to a.com/newslettersignup.
If ashortcut.com isn't a redirection and you just duplicated the pages, yes, the option would be a rel canonical tag on both pages pointing to ashortcut.com. You should determine which domain/page has more relevancy from an SEO POV, so using Open Site Explorer from Moz will be helpful (maybe ashortcut.com doesn't have more Page Authority than a.com/newslettersignup
Let me know if I miss something.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to replace the keywords of our Google Site https://www.opcfitness.com/ 's TITLE
How to replace the keywords of our Google Site https://www.opcfitness.com/ 's TITLE Our new google site https://www.opcfitness.com/ page https://www.opcfitness.com/commercial-fitness title: Gym Equipment for Sale - Buy Commercial Fitness The site name is Gym Equipment for Sale. But we need the title like this Buy Commercial Fitness - Gym Equipment for Sale How to fix it?
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
Reducing multi-page website to one page & SEO ramifications?
Hello there! I just want to check in before I do this. I am reducing a multi-page website to one page (temporarily, but for at least 4-6 months). I will be 301 redirecting all old pages to the one, new home page. The new home page has a lot more content, long and short keyword phrases. Aside from losing the benefit of internal links, will reducing the number of website pages hurt a ranking? Does having associated keywords on other website pages provide benefit to another (in this case Home) page? Thanks so much for your invaluable advice!
On-Page Optimization | | lulu710 -
'Results pages'
Hey there, I have a website that my client is update it every day with some 'results' for example - see attached image.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnPalmer
What is the best way to avoid 7 duplicate content pages every day? MgYlqFW.png0 -
H1 tag- on home page - what is it best to include
is it best to have in the H1 tag 1. just our website address 2. combination of website address followed by short keywords about our website
On-Page Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Is it better to delete old job pages on a recruitment site?
My client (online recruitment) has over 1.5 million pages indexed, the majority of which are old job posts and listings since they began. I wanted to know if it would be better to keep all of the pages, or advise my client to delete some of the archive as these pages will no longer be attracting traffic.
On-Page Optimization | | AxonnMedia0 -
Why isn't our site being shown on the first page of Google for a query using the exact domain, when its pages are indeed indexed by Google
When I type our domain.com as a query into Google, I only see one of our pages on the homepage, and it's in 4th position. It seems though, that all pages of the site are indexed by google when I type in the query "site:domain.com". There was an issue at the site launch, where the robots.txt file was left active for around two weeks. Would this have been responsible for the fact that another domain ranks #1 when we type in our own domain? It has been around a couple of months now since the site was launched. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | featherseo0 -
How do I add a meta description to the individual pages on my cms driven site?
Hello, As you can tell from my question, I'm COMPLETELY new to SEO. SEOMOZ flagged some pages as lacking a meta description. How do I add a meta description to the site? The site has a CMS architecture so I can edit text on the individual pages, but I don't know how to add a meta description, or where on the page it should go. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OTSEO0 -
Is having the word catalog in an ecommerce site url detrimental to seo.
IS: www.example.com/catalog/category%/product% better than www.example.com/category%/product% category and product are dynamic values that change with the diff. categ. and products displayed while catalog is constant.
On-Page Optimization | | no6thgear0