Best practice for duplicate website content: same root domain name but different extension
-
Hi there
I have a new client who has two websites:
http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.co.nz
http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.org.nzThey are the same in every regard apart from the domain extension (.co.nz & .org.nz) which is likely to be causing them issues with Google ranking given the huge amount of duplicate content.
What is the best practice approach to fixing this? Normally, if I was starting from scratch, I would set one of the extensions as an alias which redirects to the main domain.
Thanks in advance.
Laurie
-
Two URLs containing the same content will be considered as duplicated content, do the domain level redirection so that every URL should redirect to the home page of the preferred domain.
-
Hi - thanks for the response.
Do I still need to set up 301 redirects for every page or can I do it server-side for the entire domain? And is this approach better than using the rel=”canonical” link element in the http header tags?
Thanks
L
-
301 Redirect one to the other. That's it that's all.
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
-
Fix Duplicate Content Before Migration?
My client has 2 Wordpress sites (A and B). Each site is 20 pages, with similar site structures, and 12 of the pages on A having nearly 100% duplicate content with their counterpart on B. I am not sure to what extent A and/or B is being penalized for this. In 2 weeks (July 1) the client will execute a rebrand, renaming the business, launching C, and taking down A and B. Individual pages on A and B will be 301 redirected to their counterpart on C. C will have a similar site structure to A and B. I expect the content will be freshened a bit, but may initially be very similar to the content on A and B. I have 3 questions: Given that only 2 weeks remain before the switchover - is there any purpose in resolving the duplicate content between A and B prior to taking them down? Will 301 redirects from penalized pages on A or B actually hurt the ranking of the destination page on C? If a page on C has the same content as its predecessor on A or B, could it be penalized for that, even though the page on A or B has since been taken down and replaced with a 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | futumara0 -
Putting my content under domain.com/content, or under related categories: domain.com/bikes/content ?
Hello This questions plays on what Joe Hall talked about during this years' MozCon: Rethinking Information Architecture for SEO and Content Marketing. My Case:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
So.. we're working out guidelines and templates for a costumer (sporting goods store) on how to publish content (articles, videos, guides) on their category pages, product pages, and other pages. At this moment I have 2 choices:
1. Use a url-structure/information architecture where all the content is placed in one subfolder, for example domain.com/content. Although it's placed here, there's gonna be extensive internal linking from /content to the related category pages, so the content about bikes (even if it's placed under domain.com/bikes) will be just as visible on the pages related to bikes. 2. Place the content about bikes on a subdirectory under the bike category, **for example domain.com/bikes/content. ** The UX/interface for these two scenarios will be identical, but the directories/folder-hierarchy/url structure will be different. According to Joe Hall, the latter scenario will build up more topical authority and relevance towards the category/topic, and should be the overall most ideal setup. Any thoughts on which of the two solutions is the most ideal? PS: There is one critical caveat her: my costumer uses many url-slugs subdirectories for their categories, for example domain.com/activity/summer/bikes/, which means the content in the first scenario will be 4 steps away from the home page. Is this gonna be a problem? Looking forward to your thoughts 🙂 Sigurd, INEVO0 -
Domain name with a single digit
I have an existing campervan hire website which is being redesigned, rebranded and renamed (including the domain). The website allows businesses and owners to list campervans for rent to customers. There are a huge amount of campervan hire companies and so not many relevant domain names. Also many are for sale as expensive premium domains. We want something different that will standout. We're thinking of https//:camper7.com as its short and we think it would work. Is it best to avoid using a single digit in a domain if it isnt a 2 or 4 or does it not matter if we think it could work as it would stand out? Any help or advice would be appreciated. thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Curran1 -
Is all duplication of HTML title content bad?
In light of Hummingbird and that HTML titles are the main selling point in SERPs, is my approach to keyword rich HTML titles bad? Where possible I try to include the top key phrase to descripe a page and then a second top keyphrase describing what the company/ site as a whole is or does. For instance an estate agents site could consist of HTML title such as this Buy Commercial Property in Birmingham| Commercial Estate Agents Birmingham Commercial Property Tips | Commercial Estate Agents In order to preserve valuable characters I have also been omitting brand names other than on the home page... is this also poor form?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SoundinTheory0 -
Is it worth redirecting an old domain name which was hacked to my new website?
I had a website which got hacked and malware added to it. I have since closed that website down but I still have the domain name. That domain name prior to the malware was incredibly well ranking for its niche and had a good range of high quality links to it and a domain age of 6 years. I'm now creating a new website which is similar to the old one (the same but with a different platform and layout). Is it a good or bad idea to redirect the old domain name to the new website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | james.rose0 -
Duplicate Content Question
My understanding of duplicate content is that if two pages are identical, Google selects one for it's results... I have a client that is literally sharing content real-time with a partner...the page content is identical for both sites, and if you update one page, teh otehr is updated automatically. Obviously this is a clear cut case for canonical link tags, but I'm cuious about something: Both sites seem to show up in search results but for different keywords...I would think one domain would simply win out over the other, but Google seems to show both sites in results. Any idea why? Also, could this duplicate content issue be hurting visibility for both sites? In other words, can I expect a boost in rankings with the canonical tags in place? Or will rankings remain the same?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AmyLB0 -
Duplicate Content across 4 domains
I am working on a new project where the client has 5 domains each with identical website content. There is no rel=canonical. There is a great variation in the number of pages in the index for each of the domains (from 1 to 1250). OSE shows a range of linking domains from 1 to 120 for each domain. I will be strongly recommending to the client to focus on one website and 301 everything from the other domains. I would recommend focusing on the domain that has the most pages indexed and the most referring domains but I've noticed the client has started using one of the other domains in their offline promotional activity and it is now their preferred domain. What are your thoughts on this situation? Would it be better to 301 to the client's preferred domain (and lose a level of ranking power throught the 301 reduction factor + wait for other pages to get indexed) or stick with the highest ranking/most linked domain even though it doesn't match the client's preferred domain used for email addresses etc. Or would it better to use cross-domain canoncial tags? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Duplicate page content
Hi. I am getting error of having duplicate content on my website and pages its showing there are: www.mysitename.com www.mysitename.com/index.html As my best knowledge it only one page, I know this can be solved with some conical tag used in header, but do not know how. Can anyone please tell me about that code or any other way to get this solved. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinetraffic0