Can I redirect duplicate blogs to give credit to one?
-
I have two sites that have no duplicate content (yet). One ranks better than the other but has a crappy hyphenated domain name (Domain A), and the other one is the "brand site" with a better domain name (Domain B). I'm creating a blog with technical articles and corresponding videos. I want the videos to refer to the better domain name (Domain B) because I can't see referring people to a hyphenated domain (it would sound horrible). But, the hyphenated domain has a better chance of improving it's rankings (long story why). Can I duplicate the content and just use a canonical tag on Domain B to give the credit to Domain A? If I do that, is it done on each post? Or the blog's main page? What I think would happen is any links to Domain B would pass the juice to Domain A. Is that correct?
I know Canonical's are tricky and I don't want to screw this up, so I'd greatly appreciate some advice from the experienced people on here.
Thank you.
-
Thanks. You're right - I was making it to complicated so I just acquired an easier to remember domain that will 301 over to a single copy of the blog. I think putting a canonical on every post and hoping for the best would be, as you say, shooting myself in the foot.
Thanks for the help.
-
My gut reaction is that this is starting to sound too complicated, and you may be shooting yourself in the foot, but I don't understand the nature of the two sites, to be fair. I assume that they each have a unique role, since they currently have no duplicate content.
When it comes to canonical vs. 301-redirect, I think the core difference is what you want to have happen to users. A 301-redirect will take the user to the other site, whereas a canonical won't. If you essentially want to syndicate content to your own site, then a cross-domain canonical is a valid way to do that. This has to be done on the level of each individual post, though.
Google can ignore cross-domain canonical - it's just a hint, and definitely don't abuse it. For two sites, though, it should be reasonably effective. Again, the situation still sounds a little overly complex to me, and I can't say there's not a better solution, but I think the canonical is viable here.
-
Sorry - have to chime in here. Canonicals DO work cross-domain, and they often do pass link-juice, but it's somewhat at Google's discretion.
-
Thanks, and yes - I did over-complicate my explanation. There are a lot of articles out there about a cross-domain canonical, so I think it could be done, but maybe there's a simpler way to do this without duplicating content.
I want the authority to go to the hyphenated domain (it's higher ranked and I'm trying to push it a little further). So if MyDomainA/blog doesn't exist, but I add a 301 to send that to My-Domain-B/blog, what happens if there's a link to MyDomainA/blog? Would that still pass authority if the linked url (MyDomainA/blog) doesn't really exist?
Thanks again.
-
Hey PeachTree,
Sounds like you have a complicated situation there. However to answer your specific question, Canonical's only work for pages on the same domain, so it won't have any benefit.
You could 301 redirect pages from the hyphen domain to the equivalent page on the branded domain. This will pass the majority Authority of the hyphen domain to the brand site.
Hope that helps
Iain - Reload Media
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
-
Can't support IE 7,8,9, 10\. Can we redirect them to another page that's optimized for those browsers so that we can have our site work on modern browers while still providing a destination of IE browsers?
Hi, Our site can't support IE 7,8,9, 10. Can we redirect them to another page that's optimized for those browsers so that we can have our site work on modern broswers while still providing a destination of IE browsers? Would their be an SEO penalty? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dspete0 -
Redirect question | new blog install on subdomain
Hi, I am running a wordpress site and our blog has grown to have a bit of a life of its own. I would like to use a more blog-oriented wordpress theme to take advantage of features that help with content discoverability, which is what the current theme I'm using doesn't really provide. I've seen sites like Canva, Mint and Hubspot put their blog on a subdomain, so the blog is sort of a separate site within a site. Advantages I see to this approach: Use a separate wordpress theme Help the blog feel like its own site and increase user engagement Give the blog its own name and identity My questions are: Are there any other SEO ramifications for taking this approach? For example, is a subdomain (blog.mysite.com) disadvantageous somehow, or inferior to to mysite.com/article-title? Regarding redirects, I read a recent Moz article about how 301s now do not lose page rank. I would also be able to implement https when I redirect, which is a plus. Is this an ok approach? Assuming I have to create redirect rules manually for each post though Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mikequery0 -
Duplicate pages and Canonicals
Hi all, Our website has more than 30 pages which are duplicates. So canonicals have been deployed to show up only 10 of these pages. Do more of these pages impact rankings? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Duplicate Contact Information
My clients has had a website for many years, and his business for decades. He has always had a second website domain which is basically a shopping module for obtaining information, comparisons, and quotes for tires. This tire module had no informational pages or contact info. Until recently, we pulled this information in through iframes. Now however the tire module is too complex and we do not bring in this info through iframes, and because of the way this module is configured (or website framework), we are told we can not place it as a sub-directory. So now this tire module resides on another domain name (although similar to the client's "main site" domain name) with some duplicate informational pages (I am working through this with the client), but mainly I am concerned about the duplicate contact info -- address and phone. Should I worry that this other tire website has duplicated the client's phone and address, same as their main website? And would having a subdomain (tires.example.com) work better for Google and SEO considering the duplicate contact info? Any help is much appreciated. ccee bar (And, too, The client is directing AdWords campaigns to this other website for tires, while under the same AdWords account directing other campaigns to their main site? - I have advised an entirely separate AdWords account for links to the tire domain. BTW the client does NOT have separate social media accounts for each site -- all social media efforts and links are for the main site.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cceebar0 -
Can links be hidden?
I was wondering if anyone can help me with some advice on agency work. We have just employed a new SEO agency to conduct work on one of our websites. I took a look on OSE and GWT to see if we had any new links since the agency started working (1 month ago) but there's was nothing new. When l asked for an update as to what link building efforts had been completed last month, l was told they don't give out a list of links as it could compromise the agencies techniques. They told me that they use software to hide links form link aggregators so that our competitors don't know what we are doing. Can anybody confirm that such software exists or is this agency just taking us for a ride? If there is such a software, could this not hinder what links the search engines could see? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
How can we optimize content specific to particular tabs, but is loaded on one page?
Hi, Our website generates stock reports. Within those reports, we organize information into particular tabs. The entire report is loaded on one page and javascript is used to hide and show the different tabs. This makes it difficult for us to optimize the information on each particular tab. We're thinking about creating separate pages for each tab, but we're worried about affecting the user experience. We'd like to create separate pages for each tab, put links to them at the bottom of the reports, and still have the reports operate as they do today. Can we do this without getting in trouble with Google for having duplicate content? If not, is there another solution to this problem that we're not seeing? Here's a sample report: http://www.vuru.co/analysis/aapl In advance, thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yosephwest0 -
Setting up of 301 redirects
Good morning all, As part of the analysis of our website, we have realised that we are diluting our keyword strength in a particular area by having multiple zones all targeting the same keyword. We have decided to combine these zones into one, and set up 301 redirects so that the remaining zone gets the benefit of the other zones' link juice. When setting up a 301 redirect from zone "X" to zone "Y" say, do I need to keep all of the content in zone X, or should I remove all content before the redirect is set up? Does zone Y still get the benefit of zone X's link juice if the content is removed? Many thanks Guy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0 -
Regarding 301 Redirect!
Hello, I heard that 301 redirect can be good for newly registered domain names can i buy a old domain name and put 301 redirect on it to my newly registered niche market domain name. Shall i buy only 1 domain name and put 301 redirect to my newly registered domain names or i can do this for more than 1 old domains i purchased?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anand20100