Development Website Duplicate Content Issue

[SO_UK]

Hi,

We launched a client's website around 7th January 2013 (http://rollerbannerscheap.co.uk), we originally constructed the website on a development domain (http://dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk) which was active for around 6-8 months (the dev site was unblocked from search engines for the first 3-4 months, but then blocked again) before we migrated dev --> live.

In late Jan 2013 changed the robots.txt file to allow search engines to index the website. A week later I accidentally logged into the DEV website and also changed the robots.txt file to allow the search engines to index it.

This obviously caused a duplicate content issue as both sites were identical. I realised what I had done a couple of days later and blocked the dev site from the search engines with the robots.txt file.

Most of the pages from the dev site had been de-indexed from Google apart from 3, the home page (dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk, and two blog pages). The live site has 184 pages indexed in Google. So I thought the last 3 dev pages would disappear after a few weeks.

I checked back late February and the 3 dev site pages were still indexed in Google. I decided to 301 redirect the dev site to the live site to tell Google to rank the live site and to ignore the dev site content. I also checked the robots.txt file on the dev site and this was blocking search engines too. But still the dev site is being found in Google wherever the live site should be found.

When I do find the dev site in Google it displays this;

Roller Banners Cheap » admin

<cite>dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk/</cite><a id="srsl_0" class="pplsrsla" tabindex="0" data-ved="0CEQQ5hkwAA" data-url="http://dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk/" data-title="Roller Banners Cheap » admin" data-sli="srsl_0" data-ci="srslc_0" data-vli="srslcl_0" data-slg="webres"></a>A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.This is really affecting our clients SEO plan and we can't seem to remove the dev site or rank the live site in Google.Please can anyone help?

[ThompsonPaul]

Glad that helped, Lewis.

Unfortunately, there's really  no way to determine how long the 301-redirect process will take to get the URLs out of the SERPs. That's entirely up to the search engines and I've never seen much consistency to how long this takes for different cases.

One other thing you could do to try to help speed the process is to add an xml sitemap to the dev site, and verify it in both Webmaster Tools. (Only do this AFTER you have added the metarobots no-index tag to the remaining pages headers!) This will help remind the crawlers of the dev pages, and hopefully get the crawlers to visit them sooner, thereby noticing the redirects and individual no-indexes, and taking action on them sooner.

Personally, I'd let the process run for 2 or 3 weeks after the dev pages get re-indexed without the robots.txt. If the pages are gone, job done. If not, at that point I'd re-evaluate how much damage is being done by still having the dev site in the SERPs. If the damage is heavy, I'd be seriously tempted to use the URL Removal Tool in Bing & Google Webmaster Tools to get them out of the results so I could move on with building the authority of the primary domain (even though that would throw away the value the dev pages have built up).

REMEMBER! Once you've removed the robots.txt no-index, the metatitles and especially metadescriptions of the DEV site are what will, at least temporarily, be showing in the SERPs once the pages get re-indexed. So make certain they have been fully optimised as if they were the real site. That way at least in the near terms you'll still be attracting good traffic while waiting for the pages to hopefully drop out. This may allow even the dev pages to do well enough at bringing traffic that you can afford to wait until they drop out naturally.

**As far as seeing the additional 70 or so pages that are indexed, as Dan says, at the bottom of the search page is this paragraph and link:

_In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 3 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. _

When you click on that link, you'll see the additional pages. This is called the supplemental index and usually means these pages aren't showing up very well in the results anyway. Which means that for most of them, it will sufficient to make sure you've added the metarobots no-index tag to their page headers to just get them removed from the index to avoid future problems.

Does all that make sense?

Paul

[ThompsonPaul]

Thanks for the confirmation, Dan!

As for the process of verifying the subdomain in order to remove it using Webmaster Tools - I covered that as the last point in option 2

Paul

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Lewis

Be sure to register the dev subdomain as a separate website with webmaster tools. then do the URL removal from the dev subdomain site profile. I've seen this method work as quickly as a few days.

You can see the other pages in the index by selecting "repeat the search with the omitted results included".

-Dan

[evolvingSEO]

Wow thanks Paul, great and thorough answer!

The only thing I'll add - in terms of doing a URL removal for the subdomain;

• you have to first verify the subdomain as a totally separate website in webmaster tools. WMT looks at all different subdomains, and even httpS as different website. so register that.

• THEN you can remove the entire subdomain, using the wmt subdomain profile.

-Dan

[SO_UK]

Hi Paul,

Firstly i want to thank you for the great effort you have put into answering my question.

I have changed the robots txt file by going to Settings > Privacy > allow SERPs

Do you know how long this may take to remove the dev site from the search engines?

Also when I search site:dev.roller banners cheap . co . uk in google i only see 3 pages being indexed so unable to see the other 70?

Thanks

[SEOAndy]

requires http i believe

[ThompsonPaul]

I think the root of your problem comes from a common misconception about the robots.txt file, Lewis.

A robots.txt no-index directive is NOT designed to get pages removed from the search index. It simply tells the crawler: "when you encounter this directive, don't crawl any further". So the crawler never even gets a chance to discover whether there are any further pages, never mind whether they might be in the index already

THEREFORE! Any pages that are already in the index will simply stay there. (And if any outside sources have links to internal pages behind a robots.txt no-index directive, those linked pages' URLS will often be added to the search index anyway!) Any pages which are in the index this way will have their meta-descriptions blocked from displaying by the robots.txt directive, as you are seeing in your case.

Since a robots.txt no-index directive stops the crawler from looking any deeper, the engines are blocked from actually discovering the 301 redirects on your dev pages, and so aren't getting the cue to drop them in favour of the new pages! Hence the dev site stays in the index and shows up in SERPs. The human user does get the redirect so ends up on the new page, but you still have the duplicate content/competition problem.

NOTE: to actually tell the search engines not only to not index the page, but to remove it if it already exists, you must add a meta-no-index tag in the header of individual pages. The robots.txt no-index MUST NOT be in place in order for this tag to be discovered and obeyed. There is an automatic setting in WordPress Settings -> Reading page to disallow crawling which automatically adds the meta-no-index tag to each page's header

Unfortunately, the problem is bigger than you stated, as I'm finding almost 70 pages from the dev site indexed in the.co.uk SERPs

Here are what I see as your two main options, along with their ramifications:

1.  Remove the robots.txt no-index directive and allow the 301 redirects to be crawled, eventually causing the dev pages to drop out of the SERPS

• this would be the preferred option if the existing dev site pages have actually started to acquire incoming links and ranking value, but you'd have no control over how long it would take for the competing dev pages to drop out of the index, meaning they will continue to interfere with your SEO until that process completes
• you'll need to check whether any of the other 70 pages in the results have incoming links and if so 301 redirect them as well
• you'll need to add meta-robots no-index tags to the header of each of the remaining non-redirected pages on the dev site to get them removed from the index.

**2. ** Use the URL Removal Tool in Google and Bing Webmaster Tools to have the dev site removed from the index

• likely the fastest way to get the competing URLs out of the indexes, but would mean that any acquired link authority from the dev pages would be lost, not transferred to the live site.
• would still require either the robots.txt no-index directive to stay in place, or better yet, remove it and replace it with meta-no index tags in the header of every page on the dev site.
• you'd need to remove the 301 redirects
• since the search engines consider subdomains completely separate sites, you'd need to set up and verify the dev subdomain as a separate site in both Google and Bing webmaster tools in order for the URL Removal Tool to work.

I've never actually used the URL Removal tool on a full subdomain before, but see no reason why it wouldn't work as expected. You could actually test it out first on your dev.birdybanners.co.uk/ site as it has the same problem of the dev site being indexed in the SERPs.

Hope that helps give you a strategy to resolve the problem? Be sure to holler if you need me to better clarify anything.

Paul

[SO_UK]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your response.

When I visit remove URLs, I enter dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk but then it displays the URL as http://www.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk/dev.rollerbannerscheap.co.uk.

I want to remove a sub domain not a page, are you able to assist?

[SEOAndy]

in GWT ensure you have removed the directory / subdomain from listings / index. (under optimisation > remove urls).

May take a week to kick in but if your 301s are working and robots is in place it will work.

In addition to these ensure you are using canonical tags pointing the the live location not dev.