How to defeat the clones!

[FrontlineMobility]

Hello and welcome Mozfriends! Thank you for looking at my issue.

So I have been working on my a certain site for a client, optimizing it and such making it SE worthy. Without my knowledge about a month ago he launched two sites that are exact clones of the Ecommerce site I am optimizing. I mean EXACT alt image text, URLS, EVERYTHING! My Alexa rank started jumping back up, my google analytics was showing a fraction of the traffic I was receiving. I just learned about these two other sites and it makes sense because I have two copies of the site out there with the only difference being is the logo image on all 3. I need to know how I can rectify this without taking down the other two sites as my employer refuses to do so because he feels they are a necessary asset. Thank you in advance Friends!

Justin Smith

[FrontlineMobility]

Hey Ryan!

Thank you for the tips on how to conquer this beast. I truly appreciate it. Communication really isn't the problem it is more along the lines of getting ignored, but I will continue to try with my client. Have a great weekend!

Justin Smith

[RyanKent]

It sounds like your client has taken actions which have a direct negative impact on the SEO of the website you were hired to optimize. As a first step, I would suggest speaking with the client so you develop a better working relationship. Help the client understand you need to be involved in all future decisions which regard any aspect of the website, including copying it or using any of it's content elsewhere.

Some steps you can also take:

• canonicalize all your web pages. If the site is copied in the future, depending on how it is done, the pages could all show the canonical link back to the main site. This can be implemented on the copied sites now which would allow the main site to rank on all pages.

• add the "noindex" tag to the copied sites so only the main site remains indexed

• add authorship tags to the main site's pages to add to their credibility so they are more likely to remain indexed above the copied site's pages

• while I prefer the above steps, if all else fails you can block the other sites with robots.txt files too

These and other tactics stem from a lack of communication between you and your client. The best course of action is to work together to understand how the course of action he took is not in his own best interests. If you wind up fighting your own client, it is likely both you and your client will both lose out.