Duplicate Content and Indexing issues
-
Hey guys,
I have a client whom has an existing site www.currentdomain.ie and we have created a new site with a new domain name www.newdomain.ie.
They do not wish for it to be redirected. They wish for two sites to have the exact same content just with different logos. So for example if you search for current domain the search results present to you www.currentdomain.ie as the number 1 search listing and the same if you searched for their new domain.
I'm trying to understand how google might index the two sites if side wide canonical tag were implemented on either of the sites to get over the duplicate content issue.
How would google index the brand name of each site if one site canocilised?
I don't want to encourage this client with this idea as it appears to be nonsensical but I thought I should first understand fully what the SEO implications might be.
Thanks
Rob
-
Thanks Peter, I agree entirely. Have sent the mail to the client. Hopefully they will see some sense.
-
To add to what Tom said (and I endorsed his answer) - if Google honors the cross-domain canonical (and it's not a guarantee), then the non-canonical domain would fall out of the rankings (or, at least, certain pages would). Clients don't like to hear that, but the alternative is two domains competing with each other. At best, Google is likely to filter out one of the domains anyway (even without canonicals or redirects). At worst, there's potential for a Panda-scale penalty. There's very little to gain from this scenario, and a lot to lose, IMO.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your response. I shall relay this information to my client.
Cheers
Rob
-
Hi Rob
Agree with you that it's not an ideal solution, but to answer your query:
In an ideal world, the site-wide canonical tag would instruct Google to ignore one domain in terms of SEO/PageRank. It would not necessarily deindex the site pointing to the new site, but it would be severely devalued in ranking - basically so it wouldn't appear for search terms. I wouldn't be able to tell you if it would also stop ranking the site for the brand term - if I had to put money on it, I think it would keep its ranking for the brand term, but this is far from certain.
Furthermore, as canonical tags act as a suggestion, rather than a direct order to the crawler, having two sites with identical content could theoretically still run the risk of a Panda penalty. It's unlikely, but it can't be ruled out. To rule out that risk, adding noindex robot tags to the webpages would do the trick, but I guess that sort of defeats the point.
As you can see, the whole solution is fraught with uncertainty and risk. In theory it could work, but not everything goes according to plan.
If I was in your shoes, I'd also push for a different solution as you have mentioned.
Hope this helps.
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 other people copy your content, is really GOOD or BAD for SEO ?
Hi MOZ friends. Last week, when i was following up the backlinks linking to my domain, i detect that a new website from an unknown administrator copies the content of an entire section of my website. The administrator of that webpage did not remove the internal links on the post, so i could find.
Branding | | NachoRetta
My website has a better domain and page authority and we focus every day on create new content, but when we found people that only copy content from another, i feel disappointed. But then I got to thinking that could be good that people copy our content, although they did not quote us. If they do not remove the links either by mistake or on purpose, we receive new backlinks. ¿What do you think about this? ¿Is really good that a website copy our content? If they remove all backlinks, Is risky that Google detects that the content owner is another? ¿What do you do in this cases?1 -
Domain authority vs indexed pages
Hello, There are many articles and from our personal experience we can say that you can rank a page without backlinks with high DA but we cant figure out if DA of domain help to rank as the link juice ( so the link juice going from home page thru all pages to specific page) or it will rank a page even if its not linked in any way from homepage or any other pages and even if it not linked in any way from other pages and still ranks just because of high DA, does that DA value will spread even above all indexed pages if you have lets say 100,000 pages, i mean if domain has 100 indexed pages and DA of 50 and another domain has 100,000 and DA of 100, if both pages are the same on those domains and have no backlinks to it from my understanding page on domain with 100 indexed pages and DA of 50 suppose to rank higher ? Please share what you think
Branding | | maxdelop0 -
Linkedin: Inshares - Can I see who inshared my content?
Hi All, Just wondering... since the demise of Linkedins' Signal tool, is there a way to actually see who and where my content is being shared on Linkedin? Blog posts being published at the minute are getting inshares almost as soon as they're live and I want to know who's doing it. Any advice would be appreciated.
Branding | | SanjidaKazi1 -
What To Do With Content From SEO Perspective
With all the SEO focus now on creating and sharing unique and high quality content I ensure that is exactly what we do, however... All we seem to do is add this content to our blog with some good quality images to break up the text. Our articles are at least 800 words in length and they are always informative... Once added to our blog we share the content across the 'big 3' social platforms (Facebook, Twitter & Google+) I also do a little bit of 'internal linking' from the blog post to a relevant page on the main website - the blog is actually part of the website! So, my question is... in light of the recent 'guest post' scaremongering and the fact that every blog owner I seem to 'reach out' wants payment should I look at Web2.0 platforms such as; Squidoo Hubpages Quora Triberr ...and the many other similar sites that exist to add some of our content to? Also what about Article Directories? Ezinearticles GoArticles I know this seems like a 'throwback' to 2-3 years ago but I just wondered whether the above still have any credence? Obviously I would be very selective with regard to 'back linking' and would ensure that I vary the anchor text - to be honest, as much as a link would be useful, it's more about brand exposure ... Any advice \ recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Andy
Branding | | TomKing0 -
Duplicate Content and Boiler Plates in Press Releases - Does it Matter?
Hi All, We are in process of syndicating a few press releases on company news over the next few months. These aren't fluff PRs, they are actual news and can provide some value for linking opportunities (woohoo). Anyway, we are a public company, so there are some relatively strict guidelines as to what content we publish. A great place to place some flexible links is in the boilerplate of a release. However, we can't change that content around too much on each PR. So, question is, are there any negative implications on pushing out that kind of duplicate content on the web. Clearly, it's not our intention to spam whatsoever. But, I can see how the same type of content going out on the web multiple times in coming months good send off a negative signal. Takes/thoughts?
Branding | | Pedram_SEO0 -
Content Marketing for E-Commerce Sites
Let's have a real discussion about content marketing for B2B and B2C e-commerce sites. As an SEO/inbound marketer (these days, I'm not sure what to call myself other than my first name), it's part of my job to keep a pulse on what's going on in the online marketing community. My daily routine starts with checking several sites for news/discussion (Moz, Inbound.org, SearchEngineLand, etc). Anyone actively involved in the community knows the word "content" appears in more articles than any other word (ok, maybe there a few others). Want to increase brand awareness? Generate content. Want to drive more traffic to your site? Generate content. Want to build quality links? Generate content. Want to discover the Higgs particle before the physicists? Generate content (and distribute to the right audience, so not to the chemists - ok maybe to the chemists, they're a related audience). Content, content, content, we're told! Yes I did see the Rand's WBF from a couple months back about content-less marketing, but frankly his suggestions fall under the traditional model of advertising and word-of-mouth. We're online marketers baby, we're expanding and changing the traditional model - with content! Enough of content marketing about content marketing. Let's see some content marketing for the small B2C, mom n' pop client who sells gardening tools. Let's see the amazing infographic you made for your local pizzeria client that drove traffic to their site. Let's see the Q+A discussion thread you identified and contributed to as means to display 'market leadership' in your niche of home air purifiers. Look, I love the idea of content marketing to increase brand awareness and drive traffic. Displaying market leadership by answering questions and offering something beneficial to your target audience should be the way to grow business (along with having a good product/service, I guess). But it's much easier said than done. And to be clear, I never expected otherwise. The motivation for this post was to start a discussion about real-world, applied content marketing, not content marketing about content marketing. Let the conversation begin.
Branding | | b40040400 -
Should we create content for a competitor?
We've got an opportunity to create video content for one of the highest authority news sites in our region. It's a great opportunity for links - PR8, DMR 7.84, DMT 8.86 and also to build our brand. However the site is also one of our main competitors in the SERPs, and we would be providing content to them that serves some of our most important seasonal and year-round keyphrase targets. So my dilemma is whether it is better to create the content and get the links, keep the content for ourselves and aim to make our site the authority for those keyphrases, or place the content with another (less authoritative) site that doesn't compete in our space?
Branding | | GBC0 -
List Quick and Dirty places to seo-tag images/content for new brands
I'm helping a new brand (service industry) to try to dominate the first page for their own name. They have a name that also exists in another state AND a negative Yelp review which (shows up #4, whilst they show up #1 on google unpersonalized search). Aside from Linkedin/Facebook/twitter, what are good places to Tag Images and have them show up under the search for this company's name. This is a picture/heavy industry (jewelry) and I'm looking to create profiles on several sites that would immediately show up if I tag the content properly. Are quora/pinterest good choices? I need to grab-bag as many properties as possible. Secondary question: would these properties on quora etc, respond well to exact-match anchor text links to shoot them past the negative yelp rating that is showing up #4 for their brand?
Branding | | ilyaelbert0