Duplicate Content and Indexing issues
-
Hey guys,
I have a client whom has an existing site www.currentdomain.ie and we have created a new site with a new domain name www.newdomain.ie.
They do not wish for it to be redirected. They wish for two sites to have the exact same content just with different logos. So for example if you search for current domain the search results present to you www.currentdomain.ie as the number 1 search listing and the same if you searched for their new domain.
I'm trying to understand how google might index the two sites if side wide canonical tag were implemented on either of the sites to get over the duplicate content issue.
How would google index the brand name of each site if one site canocilised?
I don't want to encourage this client with this idea as it appears to be nonsensical but I thought I should first understand fully what the SEO implications might be.
Thanks
Rob
-
Thanks Peter, I agree entirely. Have sent the mail to the client. Hopefully they will see some sense.
-
To add to what Tom said (and I endorsed his answer) - if Google honors the cross-domain canonical (and it's not a guarantee), then the non-canonical domain would fall out of the rankings (or, at least, certain pages would). Clients don't like to hear that, but the alternative is two domains competing with each other. At best, Google is likely to filter out one of the domains anyway (even without canonicals or redirects). At worst, there's potential for a Panda-scale penalty. There's very little to gain from this scenario, and a lot to lose, IMO.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your response. I shall relay this information to my client.
Cheers
Rob
-
Hi Rob
Agree with you that it's not an ideal solution, but to answer your query:
In an ideal world, the site-wide canonical tag would instruct Google to ignore one domain in terms of SEO/PageRank. It would not necessarily deindex the site pointing to the new site, but it would be severely devalued in ranking - basically so it wouldn't appear for search terms. I wouldn't be able to tell you if it would also stop ranking the site for the brand term - if I had to put money on it, I think it would keep its ranking for the brand term, but this is far from certain.
Furthermore, as canonical tags act as a suggestion, rather than a direct order to the crawler, having two sites with identical content could theoretically still run the risk of a Panda penalty. It's unlikely, but it can't be ruled out. To rule out that risk, adding noindex robot tags to the webpages would do the trick, but I guess that sort of defeats the point.
As you can see, the whole solution is fraught with uncertainty and risk. In theory it could work, but not everything goes according to plan.
If I was in your shoes, I'd also push for a different solution as you have mentioned.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Unpublishing content question
Hi there, a disgruntled ex-employee requested that my company (a large publisher) unpublish a large number of at this point fairly dated articles. We're going to honor his request. The traffic numbers to these articles aren't significant, but I wanted to understand the SEO ramifications. Two questions: 1. These articles in sum account for 0.51% of site traffic. Will removing them outright cut off just that chunk of traffic? Or will it also affect search rankings for all of our remaining articles? 2. How should we handle unpublished URLs? Is it better to redirect the user to our homepage or a friendly, recirculation-oriented 404?
Branding | | TheaterMania0 -
Brand Migration Issues
My company is in the midst of a brand transition and is experiencing some difficulties in migrating web content to a parent company domain. When content from the old domain was migrated to the parent, there were rel-canonicals set on top level pages of the old domain referencing its equal on the parent destination. Then each sub-page was redirected to the parent company. What I have found is that the only pages that indexed on the partent domain were the top level pages. I am having a hard time figuring out why the sub-pages won't index. Does anyone have advice on how to handle this? Would reactivating the old URLs and setting rel-canonicals help? Also when should 301 redirects be implemented?
Branding | | Lexmark_Web_Strategy0 -
Renaming of Link within Site Links - Brand Issues
Hi, We welcome your thoughts on the current problem we are experiencing: When searching for our client's brand name, their previous sponsors name is shown within the Site Links to a very important page. We are keen to change this reference within the Site Link but keep the link itself. We have untaken the following without any change to the words used within this particular Site Link: 1) Removal of previous-sponsors name sitewide: Title tags Alt attribute Anchors Page names Image names 2) Removal of sponsors name from 200+ sister sites: Title tags Alt attribute Anchors Page names Image names 3) Modification of [previous-sponsor + client] within Wikipedia:
Branding | | PhilYarrow
There were 250+ mentions of the sponsor + client within Wikipedia. References have either been deleted or changed to past tense. (Google has been extremely slow at indexing these changes.) 4) Removal of off-site mentions:
After using Advanced Filters within OSE, we extracted all links that included the previous-sponsors name. We filtered these by DA and approached these sites and requested they update their links/on-site content to include the up-to-date name. This included large news organisations and reference sources. We also used Google operators (inurl, inanchor, intitle) to search for references mentions of [previous-sponsor + client]. We used Buzzstream to collate this data and contacted hundreds of sites sorted by DA. 5) We have twice requested demotion of the Site Link via GWT without success. Google clearly see's the Site Link as too important to remove it. The following is useful background information:
The [client + previous-sponsor] worked together for 5+ years. Our client is known by it's own brand, but it was also called in certain arenas as [client + previous-sponsor].
Fresh mentions of [client + previous-sponsor] are frequent. Examples of this are from collectors merchandise and videos that are posted frequently. The page being shown within the Site Links is essential. It cannot be moved. With a PA of mid-70's.
We have changed the Title of the page multiple times, without any change to the Site Link. Thanks
Phil0 -
Tips For Promoting Content & Contacting Journalists
Hey, After months of working hard we have some great content on our website, and now seem to be getting into a flow of releasing content consistently. I think it's now time to shift a bit of focus onto getting more eyes lookng at it, and importantly the right eyes. Has anyone got any tips or advice? Kind Regards
Branding | | JonathanRolande0 -
Webmaster tool's "Content Keywords" advice needed
I am looking in my webmaster tools and under the "Optimization Tab" >> "Content Keywords" and I find my website's list of what I assume words Google notices mentioned frequently. I want to know how I can better manage this and get more relevant key words to show up. Because the website I am referring to is a college lifestyle magazine we have various topics that range and I could see confuse Google.The top word is college which is great but some of the others seem a little random and could definitely be more relevant. Any tips on how to improve this? webmaster-tool.png
Branding | | CEOLaser0 -
Is duplicating video across several sites a bad thing?
Hi, We have a fairly successful YouTube Channel where we create unique and helpful videos that are related to our core business activity. When we create these videos would you consider it a bad thing to not only post them on YouTube but also a couple of the smaller sites such as Metacafe and Dailymotion? Sending to multiple sites would possibly achieve more total views but would this kind of duplication potentially be harmful to the overall success of the video and have a knock on effect when it comes to how it ranks in Google? Thanks for your help.
Branding | | ChrisHolgate0 -
Has anyone had success with product page rel=author? Can I protect the content but dump the face on the SERPS?
Hi, Is there a way to get the benefits of rel=author for protecting site content but to disconnect that from the face photo on the SERPS? We added rel=author to our unique and individually written product descriptions and reviews. This has led to a decrease in click thru thus far. I suspect this is because when searching for a product to buy the user sees the face and thinks "review" or at least "not corporate". I don't nec. want to dump rel=author in the sea yet for our ecom pages, has anyone had success with product page rel=author? Four our keywords, we are the only company of 10 well known travel sites that have the face in the SERPS, far from improving our CTR, it has trashed it. Any ideas?
Branding | | xoffie0 -
List Quick and Dirty places to seo-tag images/content for new brands
I'm helping a new brand (service industry) to try to dominate the first page for their own name. They have a name that also exists in another state AND a negative Yelp review which (shows up #4, whilst they show up #1 on google unpersonalized search). Aside from Linkedin/Facebook/twitter, what are good places to Tag Images and have them show up under the search for this company's name. This is a picture/heavy industry (jewelry) and I'm looking to create profiles on several sites that would immediately show up if I tag the content properly. Are quora/pinterest good choices? I need to grab-bag as many properties as possible. Secondary question: would these properties on quora etc, respond well to exact-match anchor text links to shoot them past the negative yelp rating that is showing up #4 for their brand?
Branding | | ilyaelbert0