Duplicate website pages indexed: Ranking dropped. Does Google checks the duplicate domain association?
-
Hi all,
Our duplicate website which is used for testing new optimisations got indexed and we dropped in rankings. But I am not sure whether this is exact reason as it happened earlier too where I don't find much drop in rankings. Also I got replies in the past that it'll not really impact original website but duplicate website. I think this rule applies to the third party websites. But if our own domain has exact duplicate content; will Google knows that we own the website from any other way we are associated like IP addresses and servers, etc..to find the duplicate website is hosted by us? I wonder how Google treats duplicate content from third party domains and own domains.
Thanks
-
Hi John,
Thanks for the response. I agree with you about using "rel=canonical". But there are too many pages to manually add these tags. Is there any other way to implement this?
Thanks
-
It's never a good idea to rely on the search engines "figuring out" confusing/contradictory signals from your website, vtmoz. While they claim they can do it in some cases, in reality, they very frequently get it wrong. (Though I've never seen any indication from Google that it makes any effort to find any connecting ownership signals between dupe sites when deciding whether to index a dupe. That would be way outside the scope of the crawler.)
So yes, it's entirely possible that wholly duplicate website is causing ranking and authority issues. Assuming what you mean by a site for "testing new optimisations" is a development website for testing new code before deploying to the live site, you'll need to get the dev site placed behind a password-protected login, or at the very least, have no-index meta tags added to every page. Once those are in place, you can use Google Search Console to request removal of the site from the index to hopefully speed things up. It's possible that when you had the dupe site before, it didn't get fully indexed, but this time it did, which would be why you're seeing more problems now. And having a dupe site in the index can definitely cause problems with the original site, as well as the dupe.
There's no guarantee removing the dupe site from the index will immediately resolve all the problems you are having, but leaving the dupe site in place in the index is just too big a risk. You'll still have to look deeper into what else may be causing or exacerbating the ranking issues.
Paul
-
This can be partially resolved by setting up "rel=canonical" tags on the website that you want Google to index. This is particularly advantageous when there is live duplicate content. It is basically a hint to the search engine that says "Look here!!".
Also, a better strategy to test landing pages, may be using a tool called Google Optimize, this will allow you to employ A/B and multivariate testing, without having a separate domain
Hopefully this helps!
John
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 -
What happens when we change redirects to pass linkjuice to different pages from backlinks? Google's stand?
Hi Moz community, We have employed different pages (topics) at same URLs for years. This has brought different backlinks to same page which has led to non relevancy of backlinks. Now we are planning to redirect some URLs which may improve or drop rankings of certain pages. If we roll back the redirects in case of ranking drop, will there be any negative impact from Google? Does Google notice anything about redirect changes beside just passing pagerank from backlinks? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google Search Analytics desktop site to losing page position compared to the mobile version of the site
Looking at Google Search Analytics page position by device. The desktop version has seen a dramatic drop in the last 60 days compared to the mobile site. Could this be caused by mobile first indexing? Has Google had any releases that might have caused this?
Algorithm Updates | | merch_zzounds0 -
Google AMP (accelerated mobile pages), can it be used for non-Google news and Ecommerce Websites?
Mozzers, I've been doing a lot of research on Google's new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) https://moz.com/blog/accelerated-mobile-pages-whiteboard-friday. From what I'm seeing, these AMP version websites are only for Google News-worthy websites such as New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and the BuzzFeeds of the world. But what about Ecommerce websites like Ebay or Amazon? Will AMP versions of "scotch tape" via OfficeDepot work in the SERP's on non-Google News cards?
Algorithm Updates | | Shawn1240 -
Added the Review rich snippet and rankings have dropped?
Hi Mozzers, I am really surprised what happened here. I conducted a small campaign by adding reviews rich snippet to 10 different microsites(covering different locations). Today I was checking if the snippets were showing up correctly in the SERPs and noticed that most of these locations with review snippet dropped in the rankings? How weird is that? Can anyone explain what happened here? Has anyone experienced this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
How soon before author rank becomes a major ranking factor?
Hi, I wanted to pose a question How soon do guys think itll be before author rank becomes a one of Googles major ranking factors? From what I can see the way they have designed it signals that it is only matter of time, before they start using it as a major ranking factor... And I have a question on Author ranks impact on the ability to sell a blog/site in the future. Surely if the blog is tied to an author(s) and the ranking of the site in the search engine is somewhat based on this authors author rank who is a part of the site/blog, then it becomes harder to sell the property if the author is not going to be a part of the property after the sale?. I look forward to your responses on this,
Algorithm Updates | | sanj50501 -
Does it impact over ranking of any website if their same content being used some other external sources
Hi Moz & members, I just want to make sure over website www.1st-care.org , does it impact over ranking this website if the same content (of about us or home care services) being used some other external sources or local citations places. Do those published same content create any ranking drop issue with this website's and making its content strengthen week? . As I was on 9th position in Google.com before, now it has slipped to 29th position. WHY? is there content issue or anything else which i am not aware.
Algorithm Updates | | Futura
See the content used:
Home page content
About us page content Regards,
Teginder Ravi0 -
Why google index ip address instead of the domain name?
I have a website ,now google index ip address of it instead of the domain name,I have used 301 redirected to the domain name,but how to change the index IP to its domain name? And why google index the IP address?
Algorithm Updates | | frankfans1170