Site duplication issue....
-
Hi All,
I have a client who has duplicated an entire section of their site onto another domain about 1 year ago. The new domain was ranking well but was hit heavily back in March by Panda.
I have to say the set up isn't great and the solution I'm proposing isn't ideal, however, as an agency we have only been tasked with "performing SEO" on the new domain.
Here is an illustration of the problem: http://i.imgur.com/Mfh8SLN.jpg
My solution to the issue is to 301 redirect the duplicated area of the original site out (around 150 pages) to the new domain name, but I'm worried that this could be could cause a problem as I know you have to be careful with redirecting internal pages to external when it comes to SEO.
The other issue I have is that the client would like to retain the menu structure on the main site, but I do not want to be putting an external link in the main navigation so my proposed solution is as follows:
- Implement 301 redirects for URLs from original domain to new domain
- Remove link out to this section from the main navigation of original site and add a boiler plate link in another area of the template for "Visit xxx for our xxx products" kind of link to the other site.
Illustration of this can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/CY0ZfHS.jpg
I'm sure the best solution would be to redirect in URLs from the new domain into the original site and keep all sections within the one domain and optimise the one site. My hands are somewhat tied on this one but I just wanted clarification or advice on the solution I've proposed, and that it wont dramatically affect the standing of the current sites.
-
Yes, if the client doesn't mind not having the content on the old domain, then 301 redirects are the best solution. Without seeing the navigation menu and the two sites, it's hard to evaluate whether you need to change the links. If it would seem odd to user to click the current link and land on the new domain, then what you suggest sounds good. If both sites are clearly identified as being the same company and look pretty similar, you may not need to change the link(s). The 301 redirects will take care of the search engines, the change to the link(s) is a question of user experience.
-
Thanks Lestr
I think I will test the canonical solution initially and see its effect over the next couple of months then review the results.
If I was to convince the client to break out the section of the site completely would my initial proposed solution be a preferred option?
Thanks
-
That's what should happen in theory. Your telling Google an Bing that the original content is at the new domain with the canonical tags. They should essentially ignore the content on the old site and only care about the content of the new site, since it's the original.
There's two caveats, though. First, is the Google expressly states that they treat the canonical tag as a suggestion. So, there's no guarantee that they'll treat the tags the way they are intended. Secondly, if the new domain has already been hit by Panda, then you have a bit of an uphill battle. Google has already decided that they think the real source of the content is the old domain name and you are trying to convince them they have it backwards.
Even with the caveats, though, canonical tags are the only solution that fits the situation and the client's wishes (to still have the content on both sites). The only other suggestion you could give is to redo the content on the new site so it is unique. That's a lot more work, though.
-
OK, so if I was to roll out canonical tags across the original site pointing to the new site, would these eventually switch out for the new URLs within the SERPs?
Thanks
-
If you are wanting to continue to link to the old domain within the old domain but remove any hits from the new domain I would simply put a canonical tag in the old domain designating the new domain as the content source. This way you can continue to use it and link to it within the old domain to allow a unified UX and give full SEO credit to the right spot.
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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
Meta description duplication
Hello, What does google mean by don't duplicate your meta description. For example if I my meta says : Stunning golf holidays in Florida , call xxxx and book today. and I have another page with golf holiday but in ireland this time. If I write Stunning golf holidays in Ireland , call xxxx and book today. Is it considered duplicate ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Site Migration of 4 sites into 1?
Hi Guys, I have a massive project involving a migration of 4 sites into 1. 4 sites include: **www.MainSite.com ** www.E-commerce.com www.Membership.com www.ResearchStudy.com Goal of this project is to have 1-4 regrouped into Main Site I will be following the best practice from this post https://moz.com/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos which has an awesome checklist. I am actually about to start Phase 3: URL redirect mapping. Because all of these sites have hundreds of duplicates, I figured I should first resolve the Main Site dup issues before creating the URL redirect mapping but what about the other domains (2,3,4) though? Should I first resolve the Dup issues on those ones as well or it is not necessary since they will be pointing into the Main Site new domain? I want to make sure I don't overwork the programming team and myself. Thanks For sharing your expertise and any tips on how should I move forward with this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Better SEO Option, 1 Site 3 Subdomains or 4 Separate Sites?
Hey Mozzers, I'm working with a client who wants to redo their web presence. They have a a main website for the umbrella and then 3 divisions which have their own website as well. My question is: Is it better to have the main site on the main domain and then have the 3 separate sites be subdomains? Or 4 different domains with a linking structure to tie them all together? To my understanding option 1 would include high traffic for 1 domain and option 2 would be building Page Authority by having 4 different sites linking to each other? My guess would be option 2, only if all 4 sites start getting relevant authority to make the links of value. But right out of the gates option 1 might be more beneficial. A little advice/clarification would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
Finding Duplicate Content Spanning more than one Site?
Hi forum, SEOMoz's crawler identifies duplicate content within your own site, which is great. How can I compare my site to another site to see if they share "duplicate content?" Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Can a Hosting provider that also hosts adult content sites negatively affect our SEO rankings on a non-adult site hosted on same platform?
We're considering moving a site to a host that also offers hosting for adult websites. Can this have a negative affect on SEO, if our hosting company is in any way associated with adult websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
How to see which site Google views as a scraper site?
If we have content on our site that is found on another site, what is the best way to know which site Google views as the original source? If you search for a line of the content such as "xyz abc etc" and the other site shows before yours in search results, does that mean that Google views that site as the original source?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Large Site SEO - Dev Issue Forcing URL Change - 301, 302, Block, What To Do?
Hola, Thanks in advance for reading and trying to help me out. A client of mine recently created a large scale company directory (500k+ pages) in Drupal v6 while the "marketing" type pages of their site was still in manual hard-coded HTML. They redesigned their "marketing" pages, but used Drual v7. They're now experiencing server conflicts with both instances of Drupal not allowing them to communicate/be on the same server. Eventually the directory will be upgraded to Drupal v7, but could take weeks to months the client does not want to wait for the re-launch. The client wants to push the new marketing site live, but also does not want to ruin the overall SEO value of the directory and have a few options, but I'm looking to help guide them down the path of least resistance: Option 1: Move the company directory onto a subdomain and the "marketing site" on the www. subdomain. Client gets to push their redesign live, but large scale 301s to the directory cause major issues in terms of shaking up the structure of the site causing ripple effects into getting pulled out of the index for days to weeks. Rankings and traffic drop, subdomain authority gets lost and the company directory health looks bad for weeks to months. However, 301 maintains partial SEO value and some long tail traffic still exists. Once the directory gets moved to Drupal v7, the directory will then cancel the 301 to the subdomain and revert back to original www. subdomain URLs Option 2: Block the company directory from search engines with robots.txt and meta instructions, essentially cutting off the floodgates from the established marketing pages. No major scaling 301 ripple effect, directory takes a few weeks to filter out of the index, traffic is completely lost, however once drupal v7 gets upgraded and the directory is then re-opened, directory will then slowly gain back SEO value to get close to old rankings, traffic, etc. Option 3: 302 redirect? Lose all accumulate SEO value temporarily... hmm Option 4: Something else? As you can see, this is not an ideal situation. However, a decision has to be made and I'm looking to chose the lesser of evils. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks again -Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bacon0