Entire website is duplicated on 2 domains - what to do?
-
My client's website has 1000+ pages and a Domain Authority of 23.
I have just discovered that the entire site is duplicated on a second domain (main URL = companyname.com - duplicate site URL = company-name.com).
The home page of the duplicate domain has a 301 redirect going to the main domain. However, none of the 1000+ other pages have any redirect set up, so Google is indexing the entire duplicate site. I'm assuming this is a bad thing for SEO.
Duplicate site has a domain Authority of 4, so I'd like to transfer whatever link juice it has, towards the main site.
What's the best thing to do?
Ultimately I think it would be best to delete the duplicate site. So would it be a case of adding a redirect to the htaccess file along the lines of:
redirect company-name.com/?slug? to https://companyname.com/?slug? (I realise this isn't the correct syntax - but is the concept correct?)
Has anyone ever dealt with this successfully?
-
You are correct that you have to delete the duplicate website and set up in the redirects in the htaccess file. Once you have done that I would fetch the home page and other top-level pages to force Google to crawl. This will help with removing the duplicate pages out of Google's index.
Also, make sure they don't have a search console set up for the duplicate webiste with a submitted site map.
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
-
How can i use multiple domain for one website?
Dear Experts, I want to make an online store like www.abc.com and I have a plan to buy 3 more domains like www.abc.co.uk, www.abc.com.au, www.abc.ae and redirect all domain to main domain which is www.abc.com but I want If somebody search from UK so He/she will see www.abc.co.uk domain in search result and If somebody search from UAE so He/she will see www.abc.ae domain in search result and same for other extension. How can I safe from duplication multiple domain for one website What would be the SEO strategy should i follow I am hoping a positive reply from your side Thanks
Technical SEO | | jfdagborrbg0 -
How to avoid Duplicate Content Creation While Assigning One Post in 2 Categories
Hello Everyone, I need advice with blog post in wordpress. I have one blog which i wish to assign to 2 different categories as the blog is related to both of the categories, for eg infographics & How to. I have noticed that if i have one post related 2 categories it flags as Duplicate content how to over come this issue. Your advice is highly appreciated. Warmest
Technical SEO | | wolfeyes0 -
Disavow to all domains?
Hi there, I have several versions of my domain setup in Webmaster tools. Should I upload my disavow file against all of these domains? For example.....
Technical SEO | | niallfred
If I find a link pointing to: http://www.mydomain.com from: http://www.somespammysite.com do I need to add a disavow file in Webmaster tools for all my domain versions or only the version the offending links points towards? So... Only
http://www.mydomain.com
Or
http://www.mydomain.com
http://mydomain.com
https://www.mydomain.com
https://mydomain.com0 -
Duplicate Content Mystery
Hi Moz community! I have an ongoing duplicate mystery going on here and I'm hoping someone here can answer my question. We have an Ecommerce site that has a variety of product pages and category pages. There are Rel canonicals in place, along with parameters in GWT, and there are also URL rewrites. Here are some scenarios, maybe you can give insight as to what’s exactly going on and how to fix it. All the duplicates look to be coming from category pages specifically. For example:
Technical SEO | | Ecom-Team-Access
This link re-writes: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html?cat=407&color=152&price=20- To: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html The rel canonical tag looks like this: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html" /> The CONTENT is different, but the URLs are the same. It thinks that the product category view is the same as the all products view, even though there is a canonical in there telling it which one is the original. Some of them don’t have anything to do with each other. Take a look: Link identified as duplicate: http://www.incipio.com/cases/smartphone-cases/htc-smartphone-cases/htc-windows-phone-8x-cases.html?color=27&price=20- Link this is a duplicate of: http://www.incipio.com/cases/macbook-cases/macbook-pro-13in-cases.html Any idea as to what could be happening here?0 -
Redirect non www. domain to WWW. domain for established website?
Hey guys, The website in question has been online for more than 5 years but there are still 2 versions of the website. Both versions are indexed by Google and of course, this will result in duplicate content. Is it necessary to redirect the non-www domain to the www. domain. What are the cons and advantages? Will the www. links replace the non-www links when it comes to keyword rankings? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | BruLee0 -
Is it better for our Blog to be blog.domain.tld or domain.tld/blog ?
I'd dread the answer being the latter rather than the former as we've spent two years building it blog.domain... However I noticed SEOmoz are domian.tld/blog and it got me thinking.... Cheers. R.
Technical SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Duplicate page error
SEO Moz gives me an duplicate page error as my homepage www.monteverdetours.com is the same as www.monteverdetours.com/index is this actually en error? And is google penalizing me for this?
Technical SEO | | Llanero0 -
Can I do a redirect to a new domain name only a couple of weeks after having redirected to another domain?
I have a client with two website with very similar content. Both had a lot of inbound links and performed fairly well in SERPS. We recently combined both sites and have redirected one of the domains to the other. The traffic dipped slightly initially, but is recovering nicely. Now the client registered a new domain name he would like to use for the site. Should I wait a few weeks for everything to settle down after the first redirect/consolidation of sites before doing a new redirect to a new domain name, or should I not worry about having any issues with doing it right away?
Technical SEO | | Drewco0