I have 2 websites with the same content
-
Hello everyone, this is my first post here on SEOmoz and I have a questions that I cannot seem to figure out. So here is my scenario:
I have 2 websites that are identical. The only difference between the 2 websites is the domain name. This was done a while back for marketing purposes, however, I am no longer needing my 2nd website. What is the best way to get rid of this second website? I still have about 1 paying customer a day convert on this 2nd website and I do not want to loose them, however, I know that I am getting penalized by the search engines because of this duplicate content. Please let me know the best way of going about this.
PS: I have read about 301 redirects, canonicalizing URLs, and other methods but do not know which one to choose. Any help is greatly appreciated!
-
Hi threebiz,
First, welcome to the community! Look forward to seeing you around in the future
Since there is a small loss of "link juice" when you apply a 301 redirect, you should pay attention to which domain you choose to redirect and which you keep as the primary domain.
Your choice may be influenced by suitability for branding, but if there is no real branding advantage in using one or the other, then I would make sure that I redirect the site with the lesser Domain Authority to the one with the greater.
You can use Open Site Explorer to check Domain Authority (DA) for both domains. You can learn more about DA under Metrics, Link Counts and Data Points.
If for example, you have Site A with a DA of 30 and Site B with a DA of 20, then I would redirect Site B to Site A, since this allows you to maintain the full domain strength of the site with the greater prospect of ranking.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Awesome. Is there anything else anybody can think of that needs to be done? I just want to do this correctly. Thanks for the response
-
In Webmaster Tools, use the Change of Address function.
-
Michelleh speaks truth.
-
Okay great. Do I need to do anything with my Google Webmaster tools account to let them know that I am moving my website? Thanks again!
-
Choose one site. 301 re-direct all content from the site you want to remove to the new site.
Make sure to re-direct to each corresponding page (don't re-direct to all URLs to the home page).
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
-
Why my website does not index?
I made some changes in my website after that I try webmaster tool FETCH AS GOOGLE but this is 2nd day and my new pages does not index www. astrologersktantrik .com
Technical SEO | | ramansaab0 -
Help regarding updated content
Hi, Some time back we created tutorials on a test tool Quality Center (http://www.guru99.com/quality-center-tutorials.html) which now needs upgrading.
Technical SEO | | Riya8520
Currently the tool has been renamed to HP ALM.
Our dilemma is whether we should create new pages for the new tutorials or update the existing tutorials itself ? To add to our pain, most of the end users still refer the new ALM with its old name Quality Center. Also we here hit by penguin 2.1 and since then have been very precautions from SEO standpoint.
Please help
Regards
Krishna Rungta0 -
Premium Content
Hey Guys I woking on a site that publishes hundreds of new content a day and part of the content is only available for users for 30 days. After 30 days the content is only accessible to premium users.
Technical SEO | | Mr.bfz
After 30 days, the page removes the content and replaces it with a log in/ sign up option. The same URL is kept for each page and the title of the article.
I have 2 concerns about this method. Is it healthy for the site to be removing tons of content of live pages and replace with a log in options Should I worry about Panda for creating tons of pages with unique URL but very similar source /content - the log in module and the text explaining that it is only available to premium users. The site is pretty big so google has some tolerance of things we can get away with it. Should I add a noindex attribute for those pages after 30 days? Even though it can takes months until google actually removes from the index. Is there a proper way for performing this type of feature in sites with a log in option after a period of time (first click free is not an option) Thanks Guys and I appreciate any help!0 -
Page Content
Our site is a home to home moving listing portal. Consumers who wants to move his home fills a form so that moving companies can cote prices. We were generating listing page URL’s by using the title submitted by customer. Unfortunately we have understood by now that many customers have entered exactly same title for their listings which has caused us having hundreds of similar page title. We have corrected all the pages which had similar meta tag and duplicate page title tags. We have also inserted controls to our software to prevent generating duplicate page title tags or meta tags. But also the page content quality not very good because page content added by customer.(example: http://www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/evden-eve--6001) What should I do. Please help me.
Technical SEO | | iskq0 -
301 redirecting old content from one site to updated content on a different site
I have a client with two websites. Here are some details, sorry I can't be more specific! Their older site -- specific to one product -- has a very high DA and about 75K visits per month, 80% of which comes from search engines. Their newer site -- focused generally on the brand -- is their top priority. The content here is much better. The vast majority of visits are from referrals (mainly social channels and an email newsletter) and direct traffic. Search traffic is relatively low though. I really want to boost search traffic to site #2. And I'd like to piggy back off some of the search traffic from site #1. Here's my question: If a particular article on site #1 (that ranks very well) needs to be updated, what's the risk/reward of updating the content on site #2 instead and 301 redirecting the original post to the newer post on site #2? Part 2: There are dozens of posts on site #1 that can be improved and updated. Is there an extra risk (or diminishing returns) associated with doing this across many posts? Hope this makes sense. Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | djreich0 -
Remotely Loaded Content
Hi Folks, I have a two part question. I'd like to add a feature to our website where people can click on an ingredient (we manufacture skin care products) and a tool-tip style box pops up and describes information about the ingredient. Because many products share some of the same ingredients, I'm going to load this data from a source file via AJAX. My questions are: Does this type of remotely-fetched content have any effect on how a search engines views and indexes the page? Can it help contribute to the page's search engine ranking? If there are multiple pages fetching the same piece of remotely-fetched content, will this be seen as duplicated content? Thanks! Hal
Technical SEO | | AlabuSkinCare0 -
Duplicate Content
Hi - We are due to launch a .com version of our site, with the ability to put prices into local currency, whereas our .co.uk site will be solely £. If the content on both the .com and .co.uk sites is the same (at product level mainly), will we be penalised? What is the best way to get around this?
Technical SEO | | swgolf1230 -
Google Website Optimizer
So if you are AB testing two pages: index.html and indexB.html Shouldn't I nofollow indexB.html? It has all the same content, just a different design.
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0