Parked former company's url on top of my existing url and that URL is showing in SERPs for my top keywords
-
I have the URL from my former company parked on top of my existing URL. My top keywords are showing up with the old URL attached to the metadsecription of my existing URL. It was supposed to be 301 redirected instead of parked but my web developer insists this was the right way to do it and it will work itself out after google indexes the old URL out of existence. Are there any other options?
-
Thanks, again. Will try these options today. It'll be nice going in more knowledgeable so it's a very good thing you do Mr. Kley.
-
Nothing he can do? Lmao what a terrible answer. On the old site, you should still have Ftp setup. In that account, go into your htaccess file and add the rule that redirects all traffic to your existing domain, or the one you want to get indexed. Also add a robots rule denying any access to the old domain ftp.
Option 2 is to delete any and all old site files in the domain Ftp you want to get rid of, have the site urls return a 404 error, and do a url removal request in webmaster tools. Option 1 would be safer imo, but doing option 2 will get rid of the old domain for good.
-
Thank you both for your responses.
@DavidKley, They do both show up and the developer says there's nothing more he can do since the old site no longer exists. Everything I've read online seems to contradict his though.
The domains in question are:
old - www.aceystowing.com
new - www.jonnystowingnow.com
Any further insight would again be greatly appreciated.
-
Just wanted to add:
Do both urls show up for a page? Meaning if you had a page about dog treats, can that page be accessed through both urls on the Web (manually or in serp results)? If so, you need to redirect the domain you don't want to use immediately to prevent duplications. Just parking one on top of the other usually will not take care of replacing the other url. You don't want to have both indexed at the same time.
-
In addition to parking the domain, did you add a parked domain htaccess rule? In addition to search engines, make sure your visitors are getting to the right place, without duplicate content.
After a while, all the new urls should replace the old ones, but I have seen this process take up to 6-8 months.
-
The definition of words like "parked" can vary in the FAQ documents of one hosting company to another. When I have moved domains I have "parked" them on my hosting and then 301 redirected specific old URLs on the old domain to specific URLs on the new domain.
There are a lot of really competent people out there, but sometimes webdevelpers have a "mechanical knowledge" of how things work but for search engines to treat your domain perfectly something else is required.
If this was my site I would have a technical SEO look at it. I've done this stuff for myself but always paid someone else to review my plan and check to see if it is workin' properly.
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
-
If I'm using a compressed sitemap (sitemap.xml.gz) that's the URL that gets submitted to webmaster tools, correct?
I just want to verify that if a compressed sitemap file is being used, then the URL that gets submitted to Google, Bing, etc and the URL that's used in the robots.txt indicates that it's a compressed file. For example, "sitemap.xml.gz" -- thanks!
Technical SEO | | jgresalfi0 -
Sitemap.gz is being indexed and is showing up in SERP instead of actual pages.
Sitemap.gz is being indexed and is showing up in SERP instead of actual pages. I recently uploaded my sitemap file - https://psglearning.com/sitemapcustom/sitemap-index.xml - via Search Console. The only record within the XML file is sitemaps.gz. When I searched for some content on my site - here is the search https://goo.gl/mqxBeq - I was shown the following search result, indicating that our GZ file is getting indexed instead of our pages. http://www.psglearning.com/catalog 1 http://www.psglearning.com ...www.psglearning.com/sitemapcustom/sitemap.gz... 1 https://www.psglearning.com/catalog/productdetails/9781284059656/ 1 https://www.psglearning.com/catalog/productdetails/9781284060454/ 1 ... My sitemap is listed at https://psglearning.com/sitemapcustom/sitemap-index.xml inside the sitemap the only reference is to sitemap.gz. Should we remove the link the the sitemap.gz within the xml file and just serve the actual page paths? <sitemapindex< span=""> xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"></sitemapindex<><sitemap></sitemap>https://www.psglearning.com/sitemapcustom/sitemap.gz<lastmod></lastmod>2017-06-12T09:41-04:00
Technical SEO | | pdowling0 -
Do I submit a sitemap for a highly dynamic site or not? If so, what's the best way to go about doing it?
I do SEO for online boutique marketplace. I've been here for about 4 weeks and no one's done there SEO (they've been around for about 5 years), so there's lots to do. A big concern is whether or not to submit a sitemap, and if I do submit one, what's the best way to go about doing one.
Technical SEO | | Jane.com0 -
Can you regain any SERPs / link juice of links that have 404'd?
We have a client whose 301 redirects disappeared and have been gone for about 6 months now. We are going to be putting the 301 redirects back in place. Will we be able to regain any of the previous SERPs or link juice from old links or is all lost? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | SavvyPanda0 -
Question on Google's Site: Search
A client currently has two domains with the same content on each. When I pull up a Cached version of the site, I noticed that it has a Cache of the correct page on it. However, when I do a site: in Google, I am seeing the domain that we don't want Google indexing. Is this a problem? There is no canonical tag and I'm not sure how Google knows to cache the correct website but it does. I'm assuming they have this set in webmaster tools? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jeff_46mile0 -
Inurl: search shows results without keyword in URL
Hi there, While doing some research on the indexation status of a client I ran into something unexpected. I have my hypothesis on what might be happing, but would like a second opinion on this. The query 'site:example.org inurl:index.php' returns about 18.000 results. However, when I hover my mouse of these results, no index.php shows up in the URL. So, Google seems to think these (then duplicate content) URLs still exist, but a 301 has changed the actual goal URL? A similar things happens for inurl:page. In fact, all the 'index.php' and 'page' parameters were removed over a year back, so there in fact shouldn't be any of those left in the index by now. The dates next to the search results are 2005, 2008, etc. (i.e. far before 2013). These dates accurately reflect the times these forums topic were created. Long story short: are these ~30.000 'phantom URLs' in the index out of total of ~100.000 indexed pages hurting the search rankings in some way? What do you suggest to get them out? Submitting a 100% coverage sitemap (just a few days back) doesn't seem to have any effect on these phantom results (yet).
Technical SEO | | Theo-NL0 -
Keyword in URL vs organization
I have a jobs site that currently has the following structure for jobs: www.site.com/jobs/openings/1234.html Categories used to be listed this way: www.site.com/jobs/openings/accounting But we changed it to: www.site.com/jobs/category/accounting Does it matter? Is one better than the other? The page title, heading, and description also have the word "openings" or "opening" in them.
Technical SEO | | cmp1010 -
Possible penguin hit but then back, now what's next?
hiz, i did a little check on my site by answering the quiz at mytrafficdropped.com and there was a question about on what dates there was drop in organic. and i did checked my analytics on a top sending keyword. here is what i found. see attached image . Traffic dropped totally on April 20 to onwards. Then got back better in june, but again dropped in October, still down.. anythoughts guys ? 1Jk47.png
Technical SEO | | wickedsunny10