301s vs. rel=canonical for duplicate content across domains
-
Howdy mozzers,
I just took on a telecommunications client who has spent the last few years acquiring smaller communications companies. When they took over these companies, they simply duplicated their site at all the old domains, resulting in a bunch of sites across the web with the exact same content. Obviously I'd like them all 301'd to their main site, but I'm getting push back.
Am I OK to simply plug in rel=canonical tags across the duplicate sites? All the content is literally exactly the same.
Thanks as always
-
Awesome - thanks Matthew.
-
Thanks Ade. This is really helpful. Much appreciated!
-
Hey,
You can do cross domain canonicals. Google does support that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI6L2N4A0hA) and the one time I had to use that, it did seem to help. That being said, I'm not sure if Bing supports that or not.
Hope that helps.
-
Hi James,
Using a rel=canonical will work but I am guessing that at some point your client will want to updated the content of their website. If you do go for rel=canonical then this would mean that you would have to also update that same content to all of the other domains.
Depending on your domain/website hosting set-up you may be able to get around this by adding all of the duplicate domains as Parked Domains on the website hosting server but this can get very messy.
Unless there is a really good reason not to then I would use 301's.
If any of the domains has been hit with the Penguin update then I wouldn't use a 301 for those domains.
Cheers.
Ade.
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
-
How bad is it to have duplicate content across http:// and https:// versions of the site?
A lot of pages on our website are currently indexed on both their http:// and https:// URLs. I realise that this is a duplicate content problem, but how major an issue is this in practice? Also, am I right in saying that the best solution would be to use rel canonical tags to highlight the https pages as the canonical versions?
Technical SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Rel=Canonical Header Location
Hello, I've been trying to get our rel=canonical issues sorted out. A fellow named Ayaz very kindly pointed out that I'm trying to put the code into the wysisyg editor, but this might not be the best place to put the code. We are using Drupal 6. Where do I insert the code? head> <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/blog/my-awesome-blog-post"> Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
Rel=canonical issue
Re. http://www.appetise.com. We have been alerted that we are "not making appropriate use of the rel=canonical tag". Please could someone just clarify this for us and let us know the recommended remedial action we need to take to rectify the issue? Many Thanks, RB
Technical SEO | | E-resistible0 -
Duplicate Content
Many of the pages on my site are similar in structure/content but not exactly the same. What amount of content should be unique for Google to not consider it duplicate? If it is something like 50% unique would it be preferable to choose one page as the canonical instead of keeping them both as separate pages?
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Duplicate Content Issue
Hi Everyone, I ran into a problem I didn't know I had (Thanks to the seomoz tool) regarding duplicate content. my site is oxford ms homes.net and when I built the site, the web developer used php to build it. After he was done I saw that the URL's looking like this "/blake_listings.php?page=0" and I wanted them like this "/blakes-listings" He changed them with no problem and he did the same with all 300 pages or so that I have on the site. I just found using the crawl diagnostics tool that I have like 3,000 duplicate content issues. Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL? Thanks for any help you can give.
Technical SEO | | blake-766240 -
What are some of the negative effects of having duplicate content from other sites?
This could include republishing several articles from another site with permission.
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe0 -
Avoiding duplicate content/same pages
hi I have been checking through all the Q and A but i i'm still not sure how you get http://www.domain.co.uk/index.html to be just http://www.domain.co.uk/? Do you add canonical to the index page to point to the page you prefer and then add a 301 redirect? thanks
Technical SEO | | challen0 -
Duplicate Content Home Page
Hello, I am getting Duplicate Content warning from SEOMoz for my home page: http://www.teacherprose.com http://www.teacherprose.com/index html I tried code below in .htaccess: redirect 301 /index.html http://www.teacherprose.com This caused error "too many re-directs" in browser Any thoughts? Thank You, Eric
Technical SEO | | monthelie10