Test site is live on Google but it duplicates existing site...
-
Hello - my developer has just put a test site up on Google which duplicates my existing site (main url is www.mydomain.com and he's put it up on www.mydomain.com/test/ "...I’ve added /test/ to the disallowed urls in robots.txt" is how he put it.
So all the site URLs are content replicated and live on Google with /test/ added so he can block them in robots. In all other ways the test site duplicates all content, etc (until I get around to making some tweaks next week, that is).
Is this a bad idea or should I be OK. Last thing I want is a duplicate content or some other Google penalty just because I'm tweaking an existing website! Thanks in advance, Luke
-
Thanks Martijn - have done all I can to block Google indexing now
- Web developer was under the impression he had done what was needed but SEO mindset always makes me delve deeper! Glad I did! -
You could protect the /test/ directory with a username / password by using .htpasswd.
This will prevent Google crawling your site and saves you your Crawl Budget. Make sure you don't link to the test/protected pages.You can remove the /test/ from Google by requesting a removal in Google Webmaster Tools. Otherwise there is a possibility that users visit some pages in the /test/ dir and receive a 404 error when you finished the tweaks.
-
Thanks Schwaab - good suggestions there!
-
I would add some no index, no follow tags to all of those pages as well just to be safe. I've had Google index some stuff I've had blocked via my robots.txt in the past. Also, make sure if you update your sitemap that you don't accidentally include these test URLs.
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
-
Thousands of duplicate website links at "Who links the most" in Google webmasters. Any risk being duplicate website links pointing to website?
Hi all, As I mentioned some days back here, our duplicate website got indexed a month back. Unfortunately there are links to our original website. I noticed that thousands of links are from our duplicate website at "Links to Your Site". Will this hurts? Now we have blocked the duplicate website getting indexed. What to do to remove these links from "Who links the most"? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How to you get a company details to appear on the right side of google searches? For example is you type dr martens in google , the search page shows links and then a snippet of the company on the right. Thank you.
For example is you type dr martens in google , the search page shows links and then a snippet of the company on the right. Thank you. https://www.google.com/search?q=dr+martens&oq=dr+martens&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2176j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
Algorithm Updates | | vijayvasu0 -
Article & Press releases submission sites
Earlier we used to submit single Article & Press releases to 100+ sites..... Now shall we submit to only one site? Is it the same with Infographics?
Algorithm Updates | | zigmund0 -
Google visits falling at the expense of Bing
Has anyone else noticed their percentage of search visits from Google slipping in the last few weeks at the expense of Bing? We've seen a 4% swing in the last month. Obviously Google is still the dominant presence (acconuting for 88.4% of all organic visits to our site kenwoodtravel.co.uk) but still it would be interesting to know if this is just a blip or more of a trend?
Algorithm Updates | | BrettCollins0 -
Will Ranking Reports be Affected with the new Google Changes?
For example: Raven stopped use of scraped Google, SEMRush data on Jan. 2 Raven stopped offering unauthorized Google SERP rankings and keyword data (a.k.a. scraped Google data) on Jan. 2, 2013. The change included the retirement of the SERP Tracker and the elimination of SEMRush data from the Raven platform. Raven has released new SEO performance reports that make it easy to show clients the impact of campaigns to improve organic traffic. Raven will continue to upgrade reports through the year. We thank the many customers who continue their business with Raven. More details about the SEO performance reports and other recent releases are available Is SEOMoz protected in some way? Or will you have to give up rankings reports too?
Algorithm Updates | | MSWD0 -
Site name appended to page title in google search
Hi there, I have a strange problem concerning how the search results for my site appears in Google. The site is Texaspoker.dk and for some strange reason that name is appended at the end of the page title when I search for it in Google. The site name is not added to the page titles on the site. If I search in Google.dk (the relevant search engine for the country I am targeting) for "Unibet Fast Poker" I get the following page title displayed in the search results: Unibet Fast Poker starter i dag - få €10 og prøv ... - Texaspoker.dk If you visit the actual page you can see that there is no site name added to the page title: http://www.texaspoker.dk/unibet-fast-poker It looks like it is only being appended to the pages that contains rich snippets markup and not he forum threads where the rich snippets for some reason doesn't work. If I do a search for "Afstemning: Foretrukne TOPS Events" the title appears as it should without the site name being added: Afstemning: Foretrukne TOPS Events Anybody have any experience regarding this or an idea to why this is happening? Maybe the rich snippets are automatically pulling the publisher name from my Google+ account... edited: It doesn't seem to have anything to do with rich snippets, if I search for "Billeder og stuff v.2" the site name is also appended and if I search for "bedste poker bonus" the site name is not.
Algorithm Updates | | MPO0 -
Google's reaction to site updates
Hi, Is it safe to assume as soon as Google indexes updates I've made to my site that any ranking changes the updates effected will happen at that same time, or is there ever a lag time before these changes ( if any ) take effect?
Algorithm Updates | | minutiae0 -
Are you getting any action from Google +1 ?
If you have added google plus one to your website you can check on the impact by visiting your webmaster tools account. In your GWT account you will see a left menu item for "+1 Metrics". If you click on "Search Impact" you can see the CTR change attributed to +1. Anybody seeing anything there yet?
Algorithm Updates | | EGOL0
