SEO impact of redirecting high ranking mirror site to the main website
-
During SEO audit for a client I noticed that they had over a dozen duplicate websites that are carbon copies of the main website. This was done via CMS platform and DNS. One of the mirror sites has about 400 indexed pages and has Moz DA of 42 and 137k External Equity-Passing Links. Full metrics comparison is attached.
I originally planned on doing rel="canonical" on the mirror site but the CMS vendor never even heard of it and is refusing to implement it in the header. My only other option is doing one to one 301 redirects.
Since the mirror site ranks well, even competes with main domain for some positions on the 1st page of SERP, what will be the impact after the redirects? Is doing 301's still the best option?
Thanks!
-
Thanks. I will just go with 301 and see how it turns out.
-
If you want to know how much traffic this domain is getting you could easily put a filter in Analytics which allows you to see the domain name when checking the pageviews.
Create a new view in Analytics and apply a filter with following settings:
Filter Type: Custom
Select: Advanced
Field A -> Extract A: Select: Hostname value: (.)
Field B -> Extract B: Select: Request URI value: (.)
Output To -> Constructor Select: Request URI value: /$A1$B1
Mark Field A: required & Mark "Override Output FieldYou could also combine all the different copies in one set in the Search Console - which would make it easier to check if there is an impact when activating the 301's.
Regardless of the traffic, the 301 remains the best option - some people say it does dilute pagerank - Google says it doesn't
As both Search Console & Analytics are not retroactive you could already make them active, wait a few weeks in order to collect sufficient data and then activate the redirects.
Dirk
-
Thanks for responding.
I am hesitant to go with 301s because not all link juice will be passed or I am wrong about that? I can't even gauge the impact this could have on traffic since the main domain and the mirrored site had the same GA tracking on them. All traffic channel data is a mess. Since mirrored website's DA is in the 40's and it is ranking on page one in SERP for a number of major keywords I assume it is getting decent traffic.
P.S.
I have already verified the mirrored domains in GSC and just waiting to pull the trigger on the 301s before informing G about the move.
-
You don't seem to have much options if canonicals are not possible.
To be honest - in cases like this I wouldn't use canonicals but always go for 301 redirects. They are pretty easy to implement (2 lines of code in htacess) and they are directives Google has to follow (and will pass pagerank). Canonicals are mere requests to Google that it can but is not obliged to respect.
Would also indicate in the Search Console of the duplicates that you're moving them to the main domain (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en) - you need to validate the duplicate domains before implementing the redirects.
Dirk
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
-
Unsolved Site Crawl Stalled and Can't Restart
In my GreenSeed campaign, the site crawl continues to say "in progress." I can't figure out how to stop it or how to restart the site crawl. Can you please help?
Moz Pro | | Winger1 -
Indexed sites
Hello I´m a newbie here on seomoz. My question is just simple but i need to be sure about that:Refering to the report which you can create in the "crawl diagnostic summary". Does the CSV export lists all and ONLY the URLS which are in the google index?If not: does a report is available where all and ONLY the URLS are listed which are in google index?Many thanks! Henrik
Moz Pro | | drgoodcat0 -
Rank Report Not Updating
The ranking tool indicates that a new rank report will be generated every Tuesday. My last report was on November 15th. It is now November 25th. It missed last week. Should I report something wrong or is this normal? How do I keep it updating on a weekly basis like it's supposed to? I checked in settings to see if I had done anything wrong and couldn't find anything. Regards, Dino
Moz Pro | | Dino640 -
I am looking for SEO tips specifically for magazine site's
I have a client who has a website that is based on a magazine. They make their money through advertisement I am primarily an inbound marketer I would be very grateful if anyone out there has any tips for a site that has been around for quite a while ( over 10 years) we are transforming the site from HTML into WordPress then hosting it with a fast managed WordPress host using CDN. I feel the lack of links is an obvious place to start however if there's anything specific to magazine based websites I would be more than grateful to hear your opinions. Thank you all in advance. Sincerely, Thomas von Zickell
Moz Pro | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Website is not being indexed in Mozscape
Hi, We launched a website Mid-March. Strangely it's not yet being indexed by the Mozscape crawler (therefore I can't use tools like Open Site Explorer). Open Site Explorer keeps telling me: "No Data Availible for this URL". I don't think it's a crawl error of some sort. Google Webmaster tools tells me everything is fine (no crawl errors). Search Engine indexing is also fine. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.
Moz Pro | | Vendic0 -
Rank page1 but not getting any clicks !!
Hi everyone, I am on page #1 position #2 with my keyword but doesnt get any clicks !I desperatly need your help. Here are some info about my site. what do you think the problem is? Thanks for your help. -My keyword's Global and Local montly search is 1300 (exact) -Seomoz Rank Tracker shows that I rank ( on Page #1, Position #2 in Google / United Kingdom) -I use always private browsing to check my rankings -my domain is a .com and I bought the domain name from godaddy -Hosting is 1&1 and their server is in Germany. Which is a shame, I ve just realized 😞 -My site ranks on Google.uk (The web) but doesnt rank Google.co.uk (pages from uk). Is this the problem? I ve just change the target country to United Kingdom using webmaster tool. Will it help? Thanks a lot
Moz Pro | | Jorenr0 -
Rank tracker accuracy
Hi there, When using Rank Tracker tool from Research Tools of SEOmoz and Google Ad preview and Diagnosis tool I get 2 very different results for the ranking of the same keyword. On the Rank Tracker my website is ranked at position 28 on Google US. As I have a Google adwords account, I use their Ad Preview and Diagnosis in selecting Google.com and United States as location for the same keyword. My website comes at position 6 in the list of organic results. Which one is accurate ? Thank you in advance.
Moz Pro | | leavethisplanet0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuation
Hi, In campaigns, every week we found a big keyword ranking fluctuation. For Example: This week SEO MOZ campaign shows one keyword on 23 position and keyword change number shows 13 position down. When i have checked manually its showing on 13th position. Can you please tell me why its happen? Waiting for your reply Thanks,
Moz Pro | | pulseseo0