Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content?
-
Older reads state the domain forwarding or masking will create duplicate content but Google has evolved quite a bit and I'm wondering if that is still the case?
Not suggesting that a 301 is not the proper way to redirect something but my question is: Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content?
Is there any viable use for domain masking other than for affiliates?
-
To my knowledge, yes.
They have certainly evolved, but in my opinion their evolution would point only to the fact that they will see through masking tricks even better than they once did.
I ran an experiment with an affiliate link in 2008, and because the domain I purchased was the exact match of a product (the owner was trying to brand his name with his domain instead of the product which people actually searched for), and my masked domain was ranked #1 for weeks!
Shortly thereafter though, Google realized it was duplicate content, and while the experiment made over $1,000 in that time, the moral of the story is that they did catch on, and the rightful owner of the site reclaimed the #1 spot (and my masked domain got the boot just like it should have).
If they were able to detect this 3 years ago in my little experiment, I would bet they could detect it now much faster, so in my opinion it would be best to avoid these tactics altogether.
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
-
How do I fix my portfolio causing duplicate content issues?
Hi, Im new to this whole duplicate content issue. I have a website, fatcatpaperie.com that I use the portofolio feature in Wordpress as my gallery for all my wedding invitations. I have a ton of duplicate content issues from this. I don't understand at all how to fix this. I'd appreciate any help! Below is an example of one duplicate content issue. They have slightly different names, different urls, different images and all have no text. But are coming up as duplicates. Would it be as easy as putting a different metadescription for each?? Thanks for the help! Rena | "Treasure" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/treasure-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 3 duplicates "Perennial" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/perennial-by-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 1 of 3 duplicates "Primrose" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/8675 1 0 0 0 200 2 of 3 duplicates "Catalina" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/catalina-designers-fine-press |
On-Page Optimization | | HonestSEOStudio0 -
How to remove duplicate content issues for thin page(containing oops no resulting found)
In this scenarios we have multiple different URLs but the page content is rendering same (containing Oops message) due to which content duplicate's issue arises.As soon as content for these URL,s are available then those pages duplicate issue will removed. So we want to remove duplicate issue not the page & Page URLs.
On-Page Optimization | | surabhi60 -
Duplicate Content when Using "visibility classes" in responsive design layouts? - a SEO-Problem?
I have text in the right column of my responsive layout which will show up below the the principal content on small devices. To do this I use visibility classes for DIVs. So I have a DIV with with a unique style text that is visible only on large screen sizes. I copied the same text into another div which shows only up only on small devices while the other div will be hidden in this moment. Technically I have the same text twice on my page. So this might be duplicate content detected as SPAM? I'm concerned because hidden text on page via expand-collapsable textblocks will be read by bots and in my case they will detect it twice?Does anybody have experiences on this issue?bestHolger
On-Page Optimization | | inlinear0 -
Index.php getting Duplicate page content.
I am quite new to SEO and have now got my first results. I am getting all my index.php pages returned as Duplicate page content. ie: blue-widgets/index.php
On-Page Optimization | | ivoryred
blue-widgets/ green-widgets/large/index.php
green-widgets/large/ How do solve this issue?0 -
Duplicating content on multiple domains
Hey guys, I've started working with a new client recently called Resource Investing News. I'm more a Social Media person, though I do have SEO experience. RIN has about 40 URLs all of which have original news content published on them. One SEO-related issue that I can see here though is that the primary domain re-publishes all of the original content that the other URLs do. In other words: resourceinvestingnews.com will have an article on it that is also published on goldinvestingnews.com with the same date stamp and a link out to the original article. E.g. http://resourceinvestingnews.com/42539-molybdenum-goes-far-beyond-steelmaking.html http://molyinvestingnews.com/5301-molybdenum-steelmaking-vehicle-demand-electronics-lubricant.html Does anyone have an idea if this is something that should be reviewed and/or whether the content is being negatively affected in search? Many thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | blahblahblah20150 -
Tools for finding duplicate content offsite?
Hi is there a tool that will spider my site then find similar text on external sites?
On-Page Optimization | | adamzski0 -
Meta description tags & title tags duplicate content?
Although meta description tags have no impact on rankings - can there be a negative effect from having many duplicate meta title + description tags with just 1-2 words switched out?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw0 -
One domain with keyword optimized pages or multiple domains
Hi There. I have a client in the real estate law services business. Which is better for long term search traffic? 1. A single domain ie. smith and smith law.com with pages focussing on each neighbourhood they operate in ie. .com/real estate law manhattan.php, .com/real estate law brooklyn.php etc or 2. multiple domains each focusing on one neighbourhood the business operates in ie: real estate law manhattan.com, real estate law brooklyn.com etc Thanks for the help, Josh
On-Page Optimization | | dreadmichael0