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There's no problem with cross subdomain canonical links.  Your plan of using setting canonicals for duplicate pages until the pages differ sounds fine to me. If you're internationalizing across different locations but the same language (like, English), Google recently released some new markup to display the title and description of the canonical page, but the URL of the localized version.  You can read more about it here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html.

Google passes link value through the 301 redirect to the destination page. Since there is no longer a page with content where there used to be, they do not take into consideration the former content of the page. I didn't mean to post the URL, I typically wouldn't on here. You could always post a bit.ly link and remove it or something like that as well. Keep in mind that OSE has a couple week delay or longer on showing new links, so you're looking at links built in December or earlier. If they really are actively building links right now, there will be a delay in seeing those.

I would suggest you contact David Burdon here: http://simplyclicks.com/

Thanks Kane for your insights.

I would assume it is manual and begin the process of reconsideration (immediately due to them taking a while - some two to three months). The reason I say that is that there is nothing in Site:url. I cannot think of any other reason that there would be zero indexed pages showing.  Have you looked on Bing for cached pages (out of curiosity more than anything)?

Sorry, the thread was getting a bit nested, so I'm breaking out this response, even though it relates to a couple of replies. Although it is tough to tell without specifics, I suspect that you do need to canonicalize these somehow. Geo-pages that only differ by a keyword or two didn't fare well in the Panda updates, and Google is starting to see them as "thin" content. I do actually think the canonical tag is preferable to a 301 here (at least from my understanding of the problem). As Aran said, the 301 will remove the pages for visitors as well, and they may have some value. While they're technically not 100% duplicates, Google is pretty liberal with their interpretation of the canonical tag in practice (in fact, I'd say they're actual interpretation is much more liberal than their stated interpretation). If the pages really have no search value, you could META NOINDEX them - it's unlikely that they're being linked to.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one. I recognize the things that you're talking about and you're correct on all accounts. Thanks again.

Hey Ash, If you use a canonical in the index.html, then when you load example.com or example.com/ or etc. etc. versions you basically load the index.html (in which there is configured the canonical link). My developer usually makes a 301 redirect from non-www. to www. and we implement to canonical link into index.html and that is it I hope it helped, Istvan

I always think that there are 2 questions to answer in cases like this: 1. Are the search engines seeing duplicate content? 2. Could the search engines see duplicate content? The tools are useful for quickly highlighting potential problems, but you really want to roll your sleeves up and look for yourself.  I'll use teh Pneumatic Grippers page as an example: The title of that page is :"Pneumatic, Grippers, Rotary Actuators, Linear Actuator, Robotics", so I'll do a search for: intitle:"Pneumatic, Grippers, Rotary Actuators, Linear Actuator, Robotics" That will bring up everything in google with that page title, just the one result - Good!  With regards to that page at least it seems google is only indexing one URL. The URL that google has indexed is http://www.agi-automation.com/Pneumatic-grippers.htm - as you say, changing that case doesn't affect what page loads, so if an odd case (say http://www.agi-automation.com/PneuMAtic-grippers.htm ) could cause a problem. What you need to prevent that is a rel=canonical in the source (I checked, you don't).  That tells the search engine what the correct address is.   Just ensure you have something like the following in your head section http://www.agi-automation.com/Pneumatic-grippers.htm" /> There is another way to do it, redirecting the "wrong" version of URLs, but rel=canonical looks like the right choice for your site. What I would say though, is this: If the search engines aren't picking up duplicate copies don't panic too much over this.  It would be good to have it, but it is only a big issue if duplicate pages are actually being indexed. If not it is good insurance. I hope that helps

Assuming each site is different, I'd say that Trip Advisor has more mentions of the hotel name and 'relevant content' than your own website. It's a PITA but I've seen this happen. In some ways, I suppose it's a good thing. If of course you have good review on TA. In my experience, where I've seen this before (twice) the original hotel site eventually outranks TA. I'd suggest you dont lose any real sleep over it. If TA reviews are good and your website has plenty of relevant content, you'll get there and visitors to both sites wont care much anyway

It would depend on whether the sites are related to your subject. If you were linking to whoever would return the link, no matter the subject - penalty. If you were linking to other sites related to your niche, benefit.  Think of it from SE's point of view - they want to see sites that are experts on a topic, and that real people link to.  So, given these two scenarios the focus is important. Of course, focusing on getting real people to link to you is FAR more important, so I wouldn't do either. Guest blogging for example is a far better use of your time.

I think this means they will also possibly take data from services such as PIcasa which you don't have to have a Google+ account for... just a Google account.

you can do that, but i would 301 then, you have so many links keeping all these sites ranking, or you can have all of the links making one site rank the best.

Have you changed your homepage drastically lately? When you look at the text version of your Google cache there are only a couple links in there. Did other links exist previously? Perhaps Google is taking them out because they no longer exist on your home page?

Putting up a notice on the homepage and allowing users to go in and delete their information is great. I'd definitely set a time limit on that based on how often the majority of users come to your site, say if you know your return customers come back every month than you leave it up for 30 days, if it's every 3 months, you leave it for 90. I'd be very clear in the copy what you're doing with the customer information and insure their privacy and respect of their information. If you're migrating that information to your other site, let them know. If you're deleting it, let them know to. Same with the email newsletter people. Send them a notice via email and let them know about the site closing, what's happening with customer accounts, and if you're moving their emails to another newsletter. If you are, you might consider having them re-opt in for that newsletter. After the time period, I'd 301 redirect it instead of building a 404 page. This is going to be better for your SEO and the vast majority of your customers will already know that you closed the site and that they could visit your other site. 301s are permanent redirects. They are valid as long as the file that redirects them is live on the web.