Duplicate Content / 301 redirect Ariticle issue

[BobGW]

Hello,

We've got some articles floating around on our site

nlpca(dot)com

like this article:

http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html

that's is not linked to from anywhere else. The article exists how it's supposed to be here:

http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/

(our other website)

Would it be safe in eyes of both google's algorithm (as much as you know) and with Panda to just 301 redirect from

http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html

to

http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/

or would no-indexing be better?

Thank you!

[BenFox]

If there's a valid reason to have the article on Nipca (as in it adds a benefit to users) then you could use a rel=canonical.

If it's not adding any value for users and is generally a dead page then why bother no-indexing when you could just remove it all together and not have it wasting crawl allowance.

[BobGW]

If I remove it won't that cause a 404 error?

Shouldn't I 301 redirect it to the nlpca.com home page?

I can't use rel="canonical" because we are in Joomla

[Dr-Pete]

When you say that it's "not linked to from anywhere else," does  that include internal links or just inbound? If it has no internal OR inbound links, then it hardly matters either way. If it gets traffic but has no inbound links, then I'm inclined to agree with Ben - use the canonical tag. That way, the page can "live" on both sites/domains, but only one of them will have search value.

I'm actually looking to take two blogs and consolidate them into one brand new domain, and I think I may use the canonical tag for a couple of months first and then 301-redirect them. In that case, though, it's because I'll eventually shut off the other domains. If there's value to having the page exist (for users) both places, then the canonical is a solid, long-term solution.

[BobGW]

Thanks Peter and Ben,

I don't know that we have access to the code in the tag for separate pages in our version of Joomla, but I don't want to leave this duplicate content floating out there. What is your suggestion?

Will a 301 redirect from nlpca to the site with the original articles weaken nlpca(dot)com

[BenFox]

I don't think it will "weaken" the domain but if it might provide a better experience for users if instead of clicking a link and being 301d they could click a link straight through to the target page.

You can 301 the duplicate pages as well if you like.