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    How to remove wrong crawled domain from Google index

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • JeanlouisSEO
      JeanlouisSEO last edited by

      Hello,

      I'm running a Wordpress multisite. When I create a new site for a client, we do the preparation using the multisite domain address (ex: cameleor.cobea.be). To keep the site protected we use the "multisite privacy" plugin which allows us to restrict the site to admin only. When site is ready we a domain mapping plugin to redirect the client domain to the multisite (ex: cameleor.com).

      Unfortunately, recently we switched our domain mappin plugin by another one and 2 sites got crawled by Google on their multsite address as well. So now when you type "cameleor" in Google you get the 2 domains in SERPS (see here http://screencast.com/t/0wzdrYSR).

      It's been 2 weeks or so that we fixed the plugin issue and now cameleor.cobea.be is redirected to the correct address cameleor.com.

      My question: how can I get rid of those wrong urls ? I can't remove it in Google Webmaster Tools as they belong to another domain (cf. cameleor.cobea.be for which I can't get authenticated) and I wonder if will ever get removed from index as they still redirect to something (no error to the eyes of Google)..?

      Does anybody has an idea or a solution for me please ?

      Thank you very much for your help

      Regards

      Jean-Louis

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Martijn_Scheijbeler
        Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

        Hi Jean-Louis,

        Why don't you just create a robots.txt file for the multisite domain addresses you used to prepare your client sites for. By doing this you will exclude Google from crawling your sub domain and make sure that they ignore the rest of the URLs. This should definitely increase your chances of removing the duplicate urls out of their index.

        Hope this helps!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • evolvingSEO
          evolvingSEO last edited by

          Hi Jean-Louis

          In theory, 301 redirects should remove the original site/pages from the index. It can just take some time. I see that it is fact properly 301 redirecting now. I would actually not block the original (wrong) domain with robots.txt - allow Google to keep crawling it to see the 301 redirects on a regular basis and they should remove them.

          In cases where I've seen Google not de-index 301 redirects, a canonical tag pointing to the new one has worked - but I don't think you need to go that far yet. I'd give it a little more time.

          -Dan

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • JeanlouisSEO
            JeanlouisSEO last edited by

            OK. Thank you very much Martijn and Dan for your support.

            I'll wait a bit more then and see if it goes away.

            Best regards

            Jean-Louis

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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