Is my other domain making me not rank?
-
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:
- 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.
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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?
-
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.
-
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
-
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
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
-
Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?
Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh0 -
User intent and ranking
Hello, I was doing search to see who ranks on the keyword "bike tours" i noticed a lot of website rank without content "text". Is it because they fulfil the user intent with a search box where you can search by date and destination, trip type and price that google ranks those webpages ? It is the same for the keyword Paris bike tours https://www.fattiretours.com/paris How do they rank with so little content (once again is it because the fulfil the user intent ) Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Domains and Domain Authority
Looking for some advice 🙂 I have a domain that has been registered since 1999 and currently hosts my website - the problem is that my business has moved in a different direction and my URL is no longer associated with my main product offering. For example in the past I was xyzgarden.com however now something like xyzhomedecor.com is much more appropriate. How should I handle this so that I am not at a disadvantage for SEO. thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MainstreamMktg0 -
How to handle multiple domains?
Hello, We are working on migrating a website to a new web server. In addition to the primary website domain, there are several other variations that are owned. Is okay if we point all of our domains to the same IP address as our primary domain, and then setup 301 redirects to the primary domain? Are there any risks in doing this? There may be about 100 domains. Many of them are different country TLD for same primary .com domain, others including misspellings of primary .com, and some that are not so related to primary domain. Thank you in advance for your response!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | srbello1 -
Can new domain extensions rank?
Hi Does anybody know if it's possible to get domains with extensions like .party or .world to rank? Even for high competitive keywords? Can they rank over .com?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeWU0 -
Making sense of MLB.com domain structure
Although the subject of subdomains has been discussed quite often on these boards, I never found a clear answer to something I am pondering. I am about to launch a network of 8 to 10 related sites - all sharing a the same concept, layout, etc. but each site possessing unique content. My concept will be somewhat similar to how MLB.com (Major League Baseball) is set up. Each of the 30 teams in the league has it's unique content as a subdomain. My goal in the initial research was to try to find the answer to this question - **"Do the subdomains of a network contribute any increased value to the Root Domain? ** As I was trying to find the answer to my question and analyzing how MLB.com did it, I began to notice some structure that made very little sense to me and am hoping an expert can explain why they are doing it the way they are. Let me try to illustrate: Root Domain = http://mlb.com (actually redirects to: http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp) This root domain serves universal content that appeals to all fans of the league and also as a portal to the other subdomains from the main navigation. SubDomain Example = http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp **Already there are a couple of questions. ** 1. Why does MLB.com redirect to http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp ? - why the mlb subdomain? 2. - Why two subdomains for tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp.? Why not just make the subdomain "tampabayrays", "newyorkmets", "newyorkyankees" etc. **Here is where things get a little more complicated and confusing for me. **
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bluelynxmarketing
From the home page, if I click on an article about the San Francisco Giants, I was half expecting to be led to content hosted from the http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb subdomain but instead the URL was: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb I can understand the breakdown of this URL
YMD = Year, Month, Date
Content ID = Identifying the content
VKey = news_MLB (clicked from the "news section found from the mlb subdomain.
c_id=mlb (?) Now, if I go to the San Francisco Giants page, I see a link to the same exact article but the URL is this: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf It get's even stranger...when I went to the Chicago Cubs subdomain, the URL to the same exact article does not even link to the general mlb.mlb.com content, instead the URL looks like this: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb When I looked at the header from the http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com ULR, I could see the OG:URL as: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf but I did not see anything relating to rel=canonical I am sure there is a logical answer to this as the content management for a site like MLB.COM must be a real challenge. However, it seems that they would have some major issues with duplicate content. So aside from MLB's complex structure...I am also still searching for the answer to my initial question which is - **"Do the subdomains of a network contribute any increased value to the Root Domain?" For example, does http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp bring value to http://mlb.com? And what if the subdomain is marketed as http://raysbaseball.com and then redirected to the subdomain? Thanks in advance. **0 -
Rankings traffic percentages
Hi All, It seems that some keywords that are receiving a fairly high amount of monthly traffic such as 6000 hits are passing very little traffic to my website. for a few keywords recieving this amount of traffic my site ranks on page one. is there a breakdown of what percentage of traffic you should roughly get to your website depending on the rank for a certain keyword. example; position 1 send approximately % traffic to your site position 2 send approximately % traffic to your site etc thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza_19850 -
Rankings Issue
Hey guys, and gals, So our site http://www.motorcyclecenter.com/ is having the hardest time ranking in the big G. We've built links, optimized, and all the other basics. If you guys have a chance, could you take a glance, and tell us what you think, as to why this site is having such a hard time. Much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leatherupseo0