Merged websites issue

[Richard555]

Hi

Before my time, company big.com took over company small.com.

They decided to replicate big.com web pages onto small.com - so both websites have identical pages and copy, just different domains.

Within the small.com sitmap.xml they list only big.com urls.

They are also using big.com google analytics tracking code on small.com.

I have no idea what happened to the original content on small.com or if they put 301 redirects on.

I am thinking: do a 301 redirect on small domain to big domain. A) Agree?

Small domain is likely to have valuable historic inbound links which are now going to 404 pages.

After I do the 301 should these then appear in big.com SEOMoz campaign and on big.com webmaster tool for me to fix? B) Views?

Or should I get up webmaster tool on small.com and fix that first? C) Views?

Many thanks in advance guys, sorry its a long statement!

Richard

[Richard555]

Hi  Ben & Robert

Many thanks again.

I have now found at least two more websites the big company has done this on ie ditched the original small company web pages and content for a copy of the Big company web pages content.

In each case the small company sitemap.xml lists the big company pages BUT many of those are wrong URLS.

I think I'll take my time on this....

Cheers

Richard

[RobertFisher]

Richard,

Remember, first I said wait.

Look at what Ben says here. He is correct (except on domain 301). You have enough weight that you do want to move it if at all possible. If it is a thousand pages, I would at least pick my strongest and get them 301'd.

Be methodical.

Use the correct urls from small to go to large.
Homepage to homepage will only help with homepage.

You cannot do domain to domain, even in .htaccess. Here is a source:  http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

You have to direct url to url. If you were simply setting the www. to non, etc. yes that can be done.

Hope it helps you out,

[Audiohype]

I would say that redirecting has value with that amount of domain authority.  A redirect would make use of the weight acquired, switching it off would lose all of this completely.

If you are worried about the amount of work involved in matching old to new URL then you always have the option to redirect to homepage. This will still pass on the weight to the site although not as effectively.

How many URLs are we talking about?

Also I'm pretty sure you can do a domain replacement via .htaccess without having to do individual 301's - can someone correct me if this isn't the case?

[Richard555]

Hi Robert, many thanks for taking the time to write a reply (and to Ben to)

Re your points, I have only just started with BIG company.

Your 'before and after' is how I assume it was. They must have done then change about 7 months ago.

I tired Archive.org but nothing much indexed and has redirects on it. Both websites had a legal notice overlay appear that had to be accepted before seeing the content.

On small.com the sitemap.xml is listing all the big URLs, its using 0.9.

OSE has approx 40 inbound links from sites with 20-30 page authority and 30-40 domain authority.

I will try Xenu link sleuth as you mention (I'll dig out my old Windows PC first!)

I suspect as you mentioned in the caveat, might be better to just turn off small!

Many thanks again

Richard

[RobertFisher]

Richard,

One question is how long ago was before your time?????

That will be a factor in all of this. Next, Advice:

Do nothing first. Sit for a moment and develop a Plan. Find out where you are on the map before you take off to another direction. Know the variables.

So that we may understand:
Before you had   and you had

Sitesmall.com/pg1 SITEBIG.com/pgA

Sitesmall.com/pg2 SITEBIG.com/pgB

Sitesmall.com/pg3 SITEBIG.com/płC      up until highly successful BIG bought up and comer small.

Each site had separate sitemap, content, urls, GA tracking code.

Then you had:

Sitesmall.com/pgA SITEBIG.com/pgA

Sitesmall.com/pgB SITEBIG.com/pgB

Sitesmall.com/pgC SITEBIG.com/pgC and this was simply because someone changed all on Sitesmall to look and feel identical to SITEBIG?

I cannot understand how you have a SITEBIG.com sitemap for Sitesmall with BIG urls? Are you simply saying the domain is different but url sub directories are the same on sitemap? Are they following 0.9 from Sitemaps.org? Otherwise I cannot see how this is constructed. (Look at Sitemaps info in GWMT)

As to GA code being the same, have you looked at analytics on both and does it make any sense? Have you looked for occurrence of GA code in other places (head and body, etc.) on both sites?

FIRST THE BIG CAVEAT:  you may save yourself a ton of work, trouble, and time... by turning off sitesmall.com and going to work on SITEBIG.com....... get it SEO perfect using all the time this will take.

On the historic, I would go to archive.org and see what is there using wayback machine. Look at what was there - when. So if the old site was six months ago, you at least know where you are reaching to and can look at old urls.

On the, did they 301? I would first for ease of looking put current homepage url in OSE and see if it says anything about redirecting. Then I would run the whole thing through Xenu link sleuth to see what is/ is not there. So Sitesmall.com then SITEBIG.com run both and see what you will see. Lot of answers there. Response codes, etc. I do not think you will find 301's as the way they changed the urls would not seem to make sense for same.

You can look to see if they used 301's in the .htaccess file, but I do not believe you will find them.

Once I knew what I was dealing with only then would I develop a plan.

Assuming SiteSmall had some Auth, PR, links, etc. and some of that still existed, I would begin the redirect plan. In the SEOmoz search bar I would place the query How to use 301 redirect? You will find a wealth of information. There are also numerous sites with code laid out, etc. in a simple search query online.

Note, I would not be using 301 of current to current as that is without value. You have to try and reconstruct old to new. Real Sitesmall.com to SITEBIG.com as it is now. Remember this is not a .com to .com redirect as that does not work. 301's are url to url. You need to know what the url was with the juice and use it.

For GA code, I would definitely change it prior to 301 if you can get it to old that might help.

This is the way to clean up the site duplication, capture a bit of juice, and possibly correct a mistake.

Hopefully, given there are some unanswered questions from what you stated, this is still helpful.

For your A. As per above.

B. Read above

C. Read above

Best

[Audiohype]

Hi Richard,

My thoughts would initially be:

a) yes a 301 redirect is probably the best way to avoid the duplicated pages and pass the weight on

b) if you have 301 redirected them they won't be 404 errors, the weight of the previous URLs will be passed on (although there is a slight decay factor involved with redirects so you won't get 100% of the weight)

c) I can't see how there will be too many errors as long as you 301 small.com to big.com sitewide. If anything big.com should get a boost from any links that the small.com pages had. Also this should help clear up the duplicate content issues.

Hope that helps,

Ben