Is my other domain making me not rank?

[Paul78]

Hi there,

We have a .co.uk website which was ranking well for a number of highly competitive keywords, however in February 2012 those rankings for those keywords suddenly dropped off Google all together and have never came back.

A few possibilties to why this has happened:

1. We launched a .ie website which has exactly the same content, could this be the reason for the drop? I have put in all the necessary steps in making sure Google ranks these geographically correct by using hreflang and making sure everything is setup properly in webmaster tools.

Why I think it could be this:

If I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of text from the pages in the .co.uk website that were ranked highly in Google.co.uk it's the .ie version that appears not the .co.uk version.

Here is the webpages in question:

http://www.avogel.co.uk/health/menopause/

http://www.avogel.ie/health/menopause/

Forgot to mention, the reason we have these two websites is due to different currency and legalities.

Hope someone can help me out with this.

[Paul78]

Yes, it seems that this is the case that it's the .ie website that been crawled more often.

I have recently launched a new section on the .co.uk website which has been crawled by Google and is not currently on the .ie website:

http://www.avogel.co.uk/health/tinnitus/

However even though this copy is all original verified using copyscape, when I copy and paste the first paragraph into Google.co.uk, this webpage above is not the one that appears in Google.co.uk, so maybe there is something else going on?

Thanks

[mrdavidingram]

On the information you've given, I'd say the issue does come down to the .ie being crawled more regularly and given credit for being the original source.

It's worth testing this. Why don't you launch a new page on the .co.uk, wait until it's been indexed, and then launch the same page on the .ie site. This will confirm if it's simply an issue of the .ie being given crawl preference.

If this works, then there are ways of ensuring the .co.uk is indexed prior to the .ie going forward (that's if you really want to avoid using the canonical tag)

David

[Paul78]

Yes, it looks likely that I will need to use "rel= canonical" tag which is far from ideal.

At the moment we are writing lots of new pages, for example, this page has recently been launched on the .co.uk & .ie websites:

http://www.avogel.co.uk/health/fibromyalgia/

http://www.avogel.ie/health/fibromyalgia/

Again if I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of the text on the .co.uk version or .ie as they are the same into Google.co.uk, its the .ie version that appears, you can check it out for yourself if you wish.

Is this a signal that the .ie webpage is getting all the credit for being the source? Even though it should not be an issue as I am using hreflang tags and everything is setup correctly in webmaster tools geographically for both domains.

A plan could be delaying the new pages/content on the .ie website until Google has crawled the .co.uk version of those new pages/content, however doing this will have the same affect on the irish website as it's having on the .co.uk website at the moment.

Thanks

[mrdavidingram]

That might be your answer then.

We're assuming the .co.uk should rank for the copy on those pages as it's the original source, however there is every chance that they picked up the .ie page first so that's why they are showing that (as they believe it was the original source).

If the .ie site was newly launched then it's likely that Google were still crawling your site regularly before they figured how often you update content and settling on an ongoing schedule.

If it was crawled before the .co.uk, which now seems likely, then that is the answer to the anomaly

David

[Paul78]

Hi David,

I had freshened up the menopause & related pages after the launch of the .ie website and them copied this content over to the relevant pages on the .ie website.

The new written content was published on the .co.uk website and the .ie website about 10 days after the .ie website went live and around 10 days before all these pages dropped:

/health/menopause/

/health/menopause/symptoms

/health/menopause/hot-flushes

/health/menopause/night-sweats/

It just seems from the above the .ie website is the issue?

Thanks

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Gary,

It seems that when given that particular phrase, and no canonical source, Google is deciding the the .ie site is the best answer. This is probably based on freshness, although I would have expected Google to still opt for the original source.

Did this content change at all at the time of the .ie launch, or had it been established on the .co.uk for some time?

If this home page text is the only real issue and you're enjoying positive rankings in both .co.uk and .ie, there may be no need to rock the boat by making changes. It is bizarre, but it's not going to lose you any business.

In an ideal world you would have original content on both, or at least have the canonical tag in place. However it seems that Google is generally doing a good job of recognising the definition between the .co.uk & .ie sites, so I wouldn't let yourself lose any sleep of this anomaly.

David

[Paul78]

Hi there,

It's just not practical to re-write all the .ie pages, there is literally hundreds of pages, most of which contain 500 - 700 words.

It looks like canonical could be my only option, however it's just something I do not want to do, as the .ie website is ranking well for a number of keywords in Google.ie

What I would say is that not one .ie webpage is out ranking any .co.uk webpage in Google.co.uk for any keyword, it's just when I copy and paste the first few paragraphs from a .co.uk webpage into Google.co.uk it's the .ie webpage that is appearing, surely this is telling me that something is just not quite right?

[activitysuper]

Change the robot.txt file accordingly.

Yeah the canonical tag will have an effect, its basically saying this is a duplicate, any Authority this dup page has pass it on to the original.

2 options: re-write all the content for .ie or canonical tag .ie pages to .co.uk pages.

I would re-write all the content for .ie.

[Paul78]

Hi David,

Thanks for your quick response.

I was thinking about using the canonical tag on the .ie website, however would this not have an affect on the rankings for the .ie website on Google.ie?

I have just noticed on the .ie website that the robots.txt file has this:

**Allow: / **

http://www.avogel.co.uk/sitemap.xml

I'm not sure what negative affect this would have if any, would it be best practice to take this out? I think what has happened here is that the developer has copied across the whole .co.uk website over .ie without actually changing the robots.txt file.

Thanks

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Gary,

This is one of the exact scenarios that the "rel= canonical" tag was created for; when there is a legitimate reason for duplicating content across pages or sites.

If you include this tag on the .ie site and thus indicate to Google that the UK page is the original source, this combined with the localised identification in Webmaster tools should restore the balance.

It's an odd one, as on paper the .co.uk should still be ranking, so it seems that Google has taken the .ie site as a fresher update of the content from the same source.

It's also worth checking if any changes have been made to robots.txt or htaccess, which would also explain the issues you're having.

Cheers

David