Up to my you-know-what in duplicate content

[Hondaspeder]

Working on a forum site that has multiple versions of the URL indexed. The WWW version is a top 3 and 5 contender in the google results for the domain keyword. All versions of the forum have the same PR, but but the non-WWW version has 3,400 pages indexed in google, and the WWW has 2,100. Even worse yet, there's a completely seperate domain (PR4) that has the forum as a subdomain with 2,700 pages indexed in google.

The dupe content gets completely overwhelming to think about when it comes to the PR4 domain, so I'll just ask what you think I should do with the forum. Get rid of the subdomain version, and sometimes link between two obviously related sites or get rid of the highly targeted keyword domain? Also what's better, having the targeted keyword on the front of Google with only 2,100 indexed pages or having lower rankings with 3,400 indexed pages?

Thanks.

[Hondaspeder]

You've pretty much confirmed my suspicions. I can set the redirects up myself, its just been about 5 years since I've done any SEO work. What I meant was should I mod_rewrite or "redirect 301 /oldurl /newurl" ...I've forgot a lot of stuff that I used to do with ease. My own sites were always started off right and weren't as bad as the one I'm working on now, so I'm in unfamiliar territory. Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it

[DavidKauzlaric]

I want to make sure that you are getting the proper advice. Can you provide me the URLs here, or PM them to me to keep them private? Once I see the problem firsthand, I can reply with the answer here for you. I am pretty sure my advice above is the way to go, but it doesn't hurt to double check!

You need to choose ONE domain for going forward. I don't care which one it is, but choose one. It makes sense to choose the one with the better rankings, at least from my perspective.

After that, you 301 redirect all versions the URLs to the proper URL (which would be WWW if it was my choice).

Yes, mod_rewrite is a server-side redirect that you can choose. Make sure whoever sets them up knows what he is doing. Having a ton of server-side redirects can increase load times and cause issues with site speed if it is not done properly. Don't be afraid of doing it, but just make sure you know what you are doing, especially since you're dealing with thousands of URLs.

You want to use permanent 301 redirects, yes.

[Hondaspeder]

Thanks I appreciate the advice. So you don't think having 2 seperate domains pointing (or redirecting) to each other occasionally will hurt anything? I have like 1000+ URLs I need to redirect already on the completely separate domain.com, as for the keyworddomain.com forum I don't think I need too many redirects as just one from seperate.domain.com to keyworddomain.com, and then one there from nonWWW to WWW should fix all the broken URLs right? When you say 301 do you mean "redirect 301" or mod_rewrite? Thanks for the help

[DavidKauzlaric]

I would first, choose which version you want to use going forward. You have three versions: subdomain, non-www, and www. Don't use the subdomain, that is a given. I personally like using WWW instead of non-WWW, however there are reasons to use non-WWW over WWW. But, given this scenario, it makes sense to use the WWW version. I know that the non-WWW version has more pages indexed, but pages indexed doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Given that WWW has good rankings and is more identifiable to a user, I would choose that. Of course, if you choose non-WWW my advice below will remain the same.

Now that you have chosen what version you want to use going forward, you need to do a few things:

• Implement a .htaccess 301 server-side redirect and redirect non-WWW to WWW (or vice versa if you so choose), make sure it's permanent. This way going forward, it'll fix your non-www and WWW issue.

• Next, you need to redirect all non-WWW indexed pages and URLs to their WWW version. This is not easy, especially with thousands of pages. However, it must be done to help preserve the PR and link-juice so it passes as much as it can through. What I recommend is seeing if there is a plugin or extension for whatever forum software you use that can aid you in this effort, or hire a programmer to build you one. It's actually not that complex to do and I have done it before in a similar situation and it does work. If you need more advice on that, PM me.

• You need to take care of the subdomain by setting up a permanent redirect to the main WWW version if someone goes to the subdomain, and also setup redirects for existing subdomain pages/URLs that have PR/Rank/LinkJuice.

• From there, make sure that you are utilizing sitemaps properly, that can greatly increase your indexing rate and volume.

I hope that these help, if you need anything further please do not hesitate to PM me or post here.

Good luck!