Two URLs with same content
-
We recently had a client who own multiple brands switch from having multiple urls to having a single domain with multiple sub domains. I've posted an example below to better explain.
My question is the original url is still functional, so there are two urls with identical content, yet I haven't been getting a duplicate content error. Also, would a rel canonical link be beneficial in this case since the duplicate content is on two separate domains?
My thoughts were to put a 301 redirect on the original pages so they permanently forward to the new sub-domain format. Is this the best course of action? If not, what would you recommend?
Example:
Original URLs
www.example1.com
www.example2.com
www.example3.com
www.parentcompany.comNew URLs
example1.parentcompany.com
example2.parentcompany.com
example3.parentcompany.com
www.parentcompany.comLet me know if this I need to clarify anything in better detail.
Thanks in advance! -
I would prefer 301 before canonical. This is because you don't loose as much link juice/pagerank when using 301 as you are when using canonical. In this scenario, it's best to act like Matt Cutts says in the attached video.
Take a look at the vid' and please don't hesitate to ask further questions to me
-
A 301 redirect is the best solution as it will point users and bots to what will then be the only source of the content. A rel="Canonical" will tell search engines which page is the canonical version but you will still have users hitting pages on the old domain and potential creating links to those pages instead of to your new subdomains, which isn't ideal.
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 to deal with 100s of Wordpress media link pages, containing images, but zero content
I have a Wordpress website with well over 1000 posts. I had a SEO audit done and it was highlighted that every post had clickable images. If you click the image a new webpage opens containing nothing but the image. I was told these image pages with zero content are very bad for SEO and that I should get them removed. I have contacted several Wordpress specialists on People Per Hour. I have basically been offered two solutions. 1 - redirect all these image pages to a 404, so they are not found by Google 2 - redirect each image page to the main post page the image is from. What's my best option here? Is there a better option? I don't care if these pages remain, providing they are not crawled by Google and classified as spam etc. All suggestions greatly received!
Web Design | | xpers0 -
Any alternative techniques to display tabbed content without using Javascript / JSON and be SEO Friendly?
John Mueller's input in the EGWMH hangout suggests that Google MAY ignore expandable content served by Javascript. Are there any alternative techniques to display tabbed content without using Javascript / JSON and be SEO Friendly? I do however view these as good for website interactivity and UX - and see many examples of websites performing well and ranking highly whilst using these techniques - are there any Google friendly ways to serve content on a page so that search bots can recognise and choose to crawl / consume the content as legitimate fodder?
Web Design | | Fergclaw0 -
Fixing my sites problem with duplicate page content
My site has a problem with duplicate page content. SEO MOZ is telling me 725 pages worth. I have looked a lot into the 301 Re direct and the Rel=canonical Tag and I have a few questions: First of all, I'm not sure which on I should use in this case. I have read that the 301 Redirect is the most popular path to take. If I take this path do I need to go in and change the URL of each of these pages or does it automatically change with in the redirect when I plug in the old URL and the new one? Also, do I need to just go to each page that SEO MOZ is telling me is a duplicate and make a redirect of that page? One thing that I am very confused about is the fact that some of these duplicates listed out are actually different pages on my site. So does this just mean the URL's are too similar to each other, and there fore need the redirect to fix them? Then on the other hand I have a log in page that says it has 50 duplicates. Would this be a case in which I would use the Canonical Tag and would put it into each duplicate so that the SE knew to go to the original file? Sorry for all of the questions in this. Thank you for any responses.
Web Design | | JoshMaxAmps0 -
Is it necessary to Remove 301 redirects from Wordpress after removing the 404 url from Google Webmaster?
There were many 404 urls in my site found by Google Webmaster. I've redirected these urls to the relevant urls with 301 redirect in wordpress. After that I removed these 404 urls from Google Index through Webmaster. "Should I cleanup these 301 redirects from Wordpress or not? ". Help Needed.
Web Design | | SangeetaC0 -
Website URL Structures - Which does Google prefer or does it matter?
Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Optimzing a new ecommerce site, Need help with URL
Hi We are putting up a new ecommerce website and for product description, our tech team indicates that they must have the skun numbers in the URL. Which one of the following URL structure do you find the most SEO freindly? 1. http://www.Site.com/SKUNumber/ProductDescription/ or 2. http://www.Site.com/ProductDescription/SKUNumber/ My personal opinion is that most relevant content should be on load page so I like option 1. Thanks
Web Design | | CookingCom0 -
Javascript changing URL - Thoughts?
So, our developer just created a player at the bottom of this site I work for. It's not really important what it is. The thing is, when you go to our home page now, the javascript changes the url from www.site.com to www.site.com/home It's not actually redirected or anything (no 301, it's just the javascript doing this), but I'm worried that if someone links back to our site they're going to surely pull that URL to point back to, which is wrong. Also, when you go to a category, the URL changes from www.site.com/category to www.site.com/home#category. Again, it's not a redirect but I'm still worried people will link back to this since it's on the entire site now... I'm suggesting that we turn off this new feature until we find a workaround. I just wanted to confirm with you guys that this is best. Thanks
Web Design | | poolguy0 -
Duplicate Content for index.html
In the Crawl Diagnostics Summary, it says that I have two pages with duplicate content which are: www.mywebsite.com/ www.mywebsite.com/index.html I read in a Dream Weaver tutorial that you should name your home page "index.html" and then you can let www.mywebsite.com automatically direct the user to index.html. Is this a bug in SEOMoz's crawler or is it a real problem with my site? Thank you, Dan
Web Design | | superTallDan0