I've screwed up. Domain pointers I forgot about. Think I am getting dinged by google.
-
Hey all. I setup some domain pointers for a client 8 years ago and now think they are hurting them. I am afraid google thinks it duplicate content. They are pointers so you can get to the same page using other domain names. Is my best approach to do a 301 redirect on them? The client is on a shared host so I have to use the web.config file. The site is pretty small so doing it for the 10+ pages is not that big of a deal. My question is this? When should I drop those pointers from the website altogether?
-
Hi Doug
If you have duplicate content then you could add a cross-domain canonical on all the pages from site 2 to site 1. Then when it's dropped away just 301 everything,
That means you'd still get direct traffic to it but Google would rank the main site 1 and drop site 2 because all the canonicals would reference site 1.
You just put the 301s in the .htaccess file
I wouldn't do it this way - I'd just make sure all the content was on site 1 then 301 but I understand you might be nervous.
Regards
Nigel
-
So I wanted to answer this question if someone else has problems with URL redirecting in IIS and they don't have console level access.
I added the following to my web.config file and this took care of all my problems.
Basically it checks to see if https is being used, if not it redirects to the primary domain using https://www.domain1.com. The second condition checks to see if it is the exact domain name. If it is anything else, it redirects to the primary https://www.domain1.com
**This fixes HTTP to HTTPs, non-WWW to WWW, and other domain pointers to the correct one. **
<rewrite><rule name="Force canonical hostname and SSL" stopprocessing="true"><match url=".*"><conditions logicalgrouping="MatchAny"><add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off"><add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^www.domain1.com$" negate="true"></add></add></conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://www.domain1.com{URL}" appendquerystring="true" redirecttype="Permanent"></action></match></rule></rewrite> -
Thanks Nigel.
There are 3 domains setup and all point to the same website. I checked with analytics and one of the domains is not even on the radar, but the other accounts for about 6% of traffic for the last year. I think the problem is google is counting this as duplicate content (same page, but 2 different domains to get there - i.e. domainone.com/page1, domaintwo.com/page1).
Domain one is the main one.
I am just super nervous about this as this is a real business that makes money and I do not want to screw it up.
My plan is to do the following:
1. Update to Https
2. Add rel=canonical to each page using absolutes (https://www.domainone.com/page1).
3. Add 301s using web.config file to point any request for the other domains to the primary.
4. Add 301 to non "WWW" request to point them to WWW version.
5. Update sitemapPray I don't make a mistake in my redirects and make the google gods mad
-
Hi Doug
Firstly I doubt there is any value in the backlinks to those old domains so I guess the only way you will get a click is if someone assumes a domain name and types it in, however
You haven't said if there is any content on those pages. If there is, then delete it and 301 to the relevant pages.
1. Use analytics to see how many entries came from those domains.
2. If it's low to zero and there are no backlinks to them then just delete them altogether.I doubt they are doing much damage to be honest unless they have duplicate content on them.
The cleanest way of course is to have one domain name but big companies still use domains that point at them. It happens a lot with TLD variants e.g. diy.co.uk points to diy.com
Regards
Nigel
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
-
Google Search Analytics How to Get Search Keywords for a Page?
How do I get the keywords coming into a page on the new Google Webmaster Tools Search Analytics? Used to be there in the old version. You would just view your most popular urls and when you expanded the urls you would see the terms driving the traffic. How do I see the most popular keyword queries for a given page in the new tool? Alternatively can I still use the old tool somehow?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | K-WINTER0 -
What is the proper way to execute 'page to page redirection'
I need to redirection every page of my website to a new url of another site I've made. I intend to add:"Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html"I will use the 301 per page to redirect every page of my site, but I'm confused that if I add:"Redirect 301 / http://mt-example.com/" it will redirect all of my pages to the homepage and ignore the URLs i have separately mentioned for redirection.Please guide me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NABSID0 -
Is there a way to get a list of Total Indexed pages from Google Webmaster Tools?
I'm doing a detailed analysis of how Google sees and indexes our website and we have found that there are 240,256 pages in the index which is way too many. It's an e-commerce site that needs some tidying up. I'm working with an SEO specialist to set up URL parameters and put information in to the robots.txt file so the excess pages aren't indexed (we shouldn't have any more than around 3,00 - 4,000 pages) but we're struggling to find a way to get a list of these 240,256 pages as it would be helpful information in deciding what to put in the robots.txt file and which URL's we should ask Google to remove. Is there a way to get a list of the URL's indexed? We can't find it in the Google Webmaster Tools.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sparrowdog0 -
Can't get page moving!
Hi all. I've been working on a page for months now and can't seem to make any progress. I'm trying to get http://www.alwayshobbies.com/dolls-houses on the first page for term 'dolls houses'. I've done the following: Cleaned up the site's overall backlink profile Built some new links to the page Added 800 words of new copy Reduced the number of keyword instances on the page below 15 Any advice would be much appreciated. I don't think it's down to links as the DA/PA isn't wildly different from its competitors. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Organic 'not provided data' - strip out brand?
I cannot strip out brand data on the 'not provided' keywords in Google analytics. Is this not possible anymore? I understand we cannot get specific keywords but can we no longer strip out brand on organic traffic in Google analytics for keywords that are 'not provided' ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
A couple of our main domains have disappeared from Google
I work with a company that has way too many domains. Over the last year or so I have been working on consolidating them, and removing duplicate content. Yesterday I did Google search for a couple terms that we are normally number one for, and we don't show up anywhere in the first 300 results. I see no warnings in Webmaster, and I can see that this happend a couple days ago. Here are the domains that have gone missing:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ToreyHeinz
www.gaso.com
Desc: Tons of good info about Gaso Pumps
Tems: Gaso, Gaso Pumps www.gasopumpparts.net
Desc: Part Lists for specific Gaso Pumps
Terms: Gaso Pump Parts www.IEQindustries.com
Desc: Company Website
Terms: IEQ Industries Here are some domins that still show up:
www.wheatleygaso.com
Desc: Searchable Pump Catalog with pump specs www.wheatleypump.com
Desc: Used to be a "duplicate" gaso.com, but mostly has links to gaso.com now. www.trenchless.org
Desc: An old incomplete site We also own a bunch parked domains that we created a generic landing page for, like:
http://www.gasopump.co/
http://www.gasoparts.co/ Many of the sites are on the same VPS server, not sure if that is causing a problem. To me it shouldn't matter, we are not trying hide anything. The sites with content serve different purposes, but we are working at consolidating them to simplfy things. The landing pages are mainly meant to park the extra domains we have. I am not terrible concerned as we are offering legitimate products and services, and we are trying to do the right things, but my client is very concerned. My question is this, what is your best guess as to what happened, and what should I change? Thanks in advance!
Torey0 -
Why do some domains out rank stronger authority domains
Hi, If we take the Moz stats into account here, how comes sometimes weak Moz stat domains out ranking strong Moz stat domains? For example: A inner page with DA56 / PA40 is outranking a Wikipedia inner page with DA100 / PA82. That's a massive difference basically twice as strong on the Wikipedia page but being out ranking. In this case I assume the onpage SEO is playing a big part, but can onpage optimisation be that powerful? And I see this all the time, what SEO factors cause this? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bondara0 -
Questions regarding Google's "improved url handling parameters"
Google recently posted about improving url handling parameters http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/07/improved-handling-of-urls-with.html I have a couple questions: Is it better to canonicalize urls or use parameter handling? Will Google inform us if it finds a parameter issue? Or, should we have a prepare a list of parameters that should be addressed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0