Previously owned domain & canonical
-
Hi,
I've recently joined the business and as part of the cleanup process I got told that we owned this domain preferredsafaris.com with some very similar content to our main site southernafricatravel.com.
We're no longer owns the preferredsafaris.com domain but looking at Google's cache for it we realised that the title, meta description & page shown when looking at the 'cached page' is for our current domain even though it is showing the 'correct' URL there.
I imagine this might have something to do with canonical set on those pages but the weird thing is all those pages now render 404 & do not show a canonical in the source code.
I have used Google Removal Tool https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals for all those URLs & Google says that it has removed them & yet they're still showing.
What do you suggest? Any potential issue in regards to duplicate content here?
Cheers,
Julien
-
I'm confused about one thing - how did you request URL removal in Google Webmaster Tools if you no longer own the domain?
It looks like Google is caching some pages of your Southernafricatravel.com domain and showing them as appearing on Preferredsafaris.com. When I dig into the cache, it's actually showing your main/active site. This could be because of an old canonical relationships between them (whether actual canonical tags, 301-redirects, or something similar), or it could be because they contained duplicate content and Google chose to view them as canonical. Sometimes, that happens even if you don't specify it.
I don't love that the new owner has put up spam irrelevant to the domain, and it's possible that could bite you somehow, but I suspect it's unlikely. Once Google sees that this old pages don't resolve, I think you'll see them gradually disappear. There is no duplicate content at this point.
-
If you check Google's index: https://www.google.co.za/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Apreferredsafaris.com africa
You'll see that both title tags, meta description refers to our current site & when checking the cached page themselves, this shows the southernafricatravel.com equivalent page...
-
Hi Julien,
Having had a look at preferred safaris, I can't find any element of duplicate content on there - it all appears to be health spam now. Where does your concern for duplicate content come from? Sorry if I am not understanding.
-Andy
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
-
Canonical Confusion
So I have products appearing in several categories, all of which have the correct canonical url. But Moz is flagging up pages I never knew existed, and I don't understand why they exist at all and more so why my canonical fix isn't occurring for them, as below: SEO Friendly URL: http://thespacecollective.com/nasa-pin-sets/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2 Weird URL to same product: http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=themecontrol/product&product_id=159 Is this a developer problem rather than an SEO problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
The Consequences & Best Practices In Changing Domains
Working with a long established/organic successful site that, for brand reasons I disagree with, is verging on changing its domain name. Other than 301ing individual pages to their new domain name equivalent, getting canonicals updated, updating SSL certificates, new Google Search Console with old settings, maintaining the old robots.txtetc what else is worth paying attention to? Assuming I do all of that, how bad a hit to organic over what period of time might this result in? 6 months ago we migrated to https and that was hardly felt, but this is really a brand new domain name altogether. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Purchasing an existing domain + redirecting to company's domain
Let's pretend that competitor.com ranks well for certain search terms and generates some traffic from organic search. If a company were to acquire the competitor (or their domain), what's the smartest way to redirect that SEO value to the acquiring company's website? Does a 301 redirect work between different root domains? Even if it does work, is that the smartest approach? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raleigh0 -
Domain switch planned - new domain accessible - until the switch: redirect from new to old domain with 307?
Hi there, We are going to switch our local domain oldsite.at to newsite.com in November. As our IT department wants to use the newsite.com already for email traffic till then, the domain newsite.com has to be accessible for public and currently shows the default Apache page without useful content. The old domain has quite some trust, the new domain is a first time registered domain (not known by search engines yet and no published anyhow). The domain was parked till now. I am aware of the steps to take for the switch itself, but: **what to do with the newsite.com domain until everything is prepared for the switch? **I suppose users or search engines find the domain and as there is no useful information available it harms us already. My idea was to 307 redirect newsite.com to the oldsite.at but the concern is that this causes problems as soon as we switch the domain and redirecting with 301 from oldsite.at to newsite.com? Do you have any objections or other recommendations? Thank you a lot in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | comicron0 -
Google Indexing Duplicate URLs : Ignoring Robots & Canonical Tags
Hi Moz Community, We have the following robots command that should prevent URLs with tracking parameters being indexed. Disallow: /*? We have noticed google has started indexing pages that are using tracking parameters. Example below. http://www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/original-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table/1149.html http://www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/original-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table/1149.html?ec=affee77a60fe4867 These pages are identified as duplicate content yet have the correct canonical tags: https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&site=&source=hp&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.oakfurnitureland.co.uk%2Ffurniture%2Foriginal-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table%2F1149.html&oq=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.oakfurnitureland.co.uk%2Ffurniture%2Foriginal-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table%2F1149.html&gs_l=hp.3..0i10j0l9.4201.5461.0.5879.8.8.0.0.0.0.82.376.7.7.0....0...1c.1.58.hp..3.5.268.0.JTW91YEkjh4 With various affiliate feeds available for our site, we effectively have duplicate versions of every page due to the tracking query that Google seems to be willing to index, ignoring both robots rules & canonical tags. Can anyone shed any light onto the situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBGlobalSEO0 -
Primary Domain or Redirect?
We are starting a new travel guide for a resort town. I have bought an expired domain with decent related links and PR (which seems to have survived the transfer (4 months ago). Beofre we launch the new site I am trying to decide if we should use this expired domain as the primary URL for the new site or just do a permanent redirect and buy a new domain that better matches the theme of the site. I am obviously concerned with starting from scatch with a new domain. I am confident we can build some good rellevant links in a short time but this space is very competetive. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Locals0 -
Blog URL Canonical
Hi Guy's, I would like to know your thoughts on the following set-up for blog canonical. Option 1 domain.com/blog = <link rel="canonical" href="domin.com/blog"> domain.com/blog-category/general = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com/blog"> domain.com/blog-article/how-to-set-canonical = no canonical option 2 domain.com/blog = <link rel="canonical" href="domin.com blog"="">(as option 1)</link rel="canonical" href="domin.com> domain.com/blog-category/general = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com blog-category="" general"="">(this time has the canonical of the category)</link rel="canonical" href="domain.com> domain.com/blog-article/how-to-set-canonical = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com blog-article="" how-to-set-canonical"="">(this time has the canonical of the article full URL)</link rel="canonical" href="domain.com> Just not sure which is the best option, or even if it is any of the above! Thanks Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan1e10 -
Cross Domain Rel Canonical for Affiliates?
Hi We use the Cross Domain Rel Canonical for duplicate content between our own websites, but what about affiliates sites who want our XML feed, (descriptions of our products). We don´t mind being credited but would this present a danger for us? Who is controlling the use of that cross domain rel canonical, us in our feed or them? Is there another way around it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0