undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Research & Trends
  3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
  4. Preventing CNAME Site Duplications

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Preventing CNAME Site Duplications

White Hat / Black Hat SEO
3
6
1.1k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • David-Kley
    David-Kley last edited by Apr 20, 2015, 2:32 PM

    Hello fellow mozzers!

    Let me see if I can explain this properly.

    First, our server admin is out of contact at the moment,
    so we are having to take this project on somewhat blind. (forgive the ignorance of terms).

    We have a client that needs a cname record setup, as they need a sales.DOMAIN.com to go to a different
    provider of data. They have a "store" platform that is hosted elsewhere and they require a cname to be 
    sent to a custom subdomain they set up on their end.

    My question is, how do we prevent the cname from being indexed along with the main domain? If we 
    process a redirect for the subdomain, then the site will not be able to go out and grab the other providers
    info and display it. Currently, if you type in the sales.DOMAIN.com it shows the main site's homepage.
    That cannot be allow to take place as we all know, having more than one domain with
    exact same content = very bad for seo. I'd rather not rely on Google to figure it out.

    Should we just have the cname host (where its pointing at) add a robots rule and have it set to not index
    the cname? The store does not need to be indexed, as the items are changed almost daily.

    Lastly, is an A record required for this type of situation in any way?

    Forgive my ignorance of subdomains, cname records and related terms. Our server admin being
    unavailable is not helping this project move along any. Any advice on the best way to handle
    this would be very helpful!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • David-Kley
      David-Kley @AlanMosley last edited by May 12, 2015, 3:06 PM May 12, 2015, 3:06 PM

      It is pointing to the other server now. We have it blocked from indexing on that end, just wanted to make sure that was enough.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanMosley
        AlanMosley @David-Kley last edited by May 12, 2015, 2:52 PM May 12, 2015, 2:52 PM

        No,
        it is because you are pointing sales to a different sever, it seems to me that you don't have your dns set up correctly. you don't want sales pointing to your main website.

        David-Kley 1 Reply Last reply May 12, 2015, 3:06 PM Reply Quote 0
        • David-Kley
          David-Kley @AlanMosley last edited by May 12, 2015, 2:46 PM May 12, 2015, 2:46 PM

          So does this work better because Google will not show an IP address in search results?

          AlanMosley 1 Reply Last reply May 12, 2015, 2:52 PM Reply Quote 0
          • AlanMosley
            AlanMosley last edited by Sep 22, 2015, 3:04 PM May 12, 2015, 1:53 PM

            You need to point your cname to the ip of the server that hosts your sales.domain.com

            don't

            sales.domain.com > domain.com

            Do

            sales.domain.com > 123.123.123.123

            where 123.123.123.123 is the ip of the hosting webserver.

            David-Kley 1 Reply Last reply May 12, 2015, 2:46 PM Reply Quote 1
            • topic:timeago_earlier,22 days
            • Yeeply.com
              Yeeply.com last edited by Apr 20, 2015, 3:59 PM Apr 20, 2015, 3:59 PM

              Hello David,

              I think with the robots rule (there are many examples out there) should be more than enough in your case! take a look at this helpful article: http://moz.com/community/q/block-an-entire-subdomain-with-robots-txt

              I hope that was helpful! Sorry about my English... I'm Spanish 🙂

              Luis

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • ryj

                Should I delete older posts on my site that are lower quality?

                Hey guys! Thanks in advance for thinking through this with me. You're appreciated! I have 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content that has been a large focus of mine over the last couple years. They're incredibly important to my business. That said, less experienced me did what I thought was best by hiring a freelance writer to create extra content to interlink them and add relevancy to the overall site. Looking back through everything, I am starting to realize that this extra content, which now makes up 1/3 my site, is at about 65%-70% quality AND only gets a total of about 250 visitors per month combined -- for all 384 articles. Rather than spending the next 9 months and investing in a higher quality content creator to revamp them, I am seeing the next best option to remove them. From a pros perspective, do you guys think removing these 384 lower quality articles is my best option and focusing my efforts on a better UX, faster site, and continual upgrading of the 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content? I'm honestly at a point where I am ready to cut my losses, admit my mistakes, and swear to publish nothing but gold moving forward. I'd love to hear how you would approach this situation! Thanks 🙂

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Sep 20, 2016, 1:44 PM | ryj
                0
              • wearehappymedia

                Spam sites with low spam score?

                Hello! I have a fair few links on some of the old SEO 'Directory' sites. I've got rid of all the obviously spammy ones - however there are a few that remain which have very low spam scores, and decent page authority, yet they are clearly just SEO directories - I can't believe they service any other purpose. Should we now just be getting rid of all links like this, or is it worth keeping if the domain authority is decent and spam score low? Thanks Sam

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Nov 24, 2015, 8:57 PM | wearehappymedia
                0
              • SEOBirmingham81

                The use of a ghost site for SEO purposes

                Hi Guys, Have just taken on a new client (.co.uk domain) and during our research have identified they also have a .com domain which is a replica of the existing site but all links lead to the .co.uk domain. As a result of this, the .com replica is pushing 5,000,000+ links to the .co.uk site. After speaking to the client, it appears they were approached by a company who said that they could get the .com site ranking for local search queries and then push all that traffic to .co.uk. From analytics we can see that very little referrer traffic is coming from the .com. It sounds remarkably dodgy to us - surely the duplicate site is an issue anyway for obvious reasons, these links could also be deemed as being created for SEO gain? Does anyone have any experience of this as a tactic? Thanks, Dan

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Aug 27, 2015, 1:33 PM | SEOBirmingham81
                0
              • Lisa-Devins

                Do I lose link juice if I have a https site and someone links to me using http instead?

                We have recently launched a https site which is getting some organic links some of which are using https and some are using http. Am I losing link juice on the ones linked using http even though I am redirecting or does Google view them the same way? As most people still use http naturally will it look strange to google if I contact anyone who has given us a link and ask them to change to https?

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Apr 13, 2015, 2:30 PM | Lisa-Devins
                0
              • IsaCleanse

                Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain

                Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
                www.domainname.com.au/MY
                domainname.com.au/malaysia
                malaysia.domainname.com.au
                my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Feb 22, 2015, 2:14 PM | IsaCleanse
                0
              • CFSSEO

                Duplicate keywords in URL?

                Is there such a thing as keyword stuffing URLs?  Such as a domain name of turtlesforsale.com having a directory called turtles-for-sale that houses all the pages on the site.  Every page would start out with turtlesforsale.com/turtles-for-sale/. Good or bad idea?  The owner is hoping to capitalize on the keywords of turtles for sale being in the URL twice and ranking better for that reason.

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Dec 29, 2014, 9:02 PM | CFSSEO
                0
              • maestrosonrisas

                Rel author and duplicate content

                I have a question if a page who a im the only author, my web will duplicate content with the blog posts and the author post as they are the same. ¿what is your suggestion in that case? thanks

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Jul 4, 2013, 6:59 PM | maestrosonrisas
                0
              • Markus111

                Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?

                I have been emailed asking if I sell links on one of my sites.  The person wants to link out to slotsofvegas[dot]com or similar. Should I be concerned about linking out to this and does it reduce the link value to any of the other sites that the site links out to? Thanks, Mark

                White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Mar 3, 2011, 10:42 PM | Markus111
                1

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.