Backup Server causing duplicate content flag?

[yaelslater]

Hi, Google is indexing pages from our backup server. Is this a duplicate content issue? There are essentially two versions of our entire domain indexed by Google. How do people typically handle this? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks, Yael

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi,

It would usually be best to exclude these kind of domains from a search engine to make sure they don't end up as becoming duplicate content.

Martijn.

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi yaelslater

I had this with my developer in the distant past. He put a copy of my website on another domain for 'development purposes'. Unbelievable that anyone could be so naive.It completely destroyed my website and all rankings dropped as yours must be doing now.

You must put a site-wide noindex on every page.

Regards

Nigel

[yaelslater]

Thanks for the answers!

For the time being, we unfortunately can't noindex because the backup site is used frequently. We need that to automatically kick in whenever the domain has problems. It looks like these pages are showing up externally because the server is hosted externally. Once we move to the cloud, this should no longer be an issue.

[Nigel_Carr]

I'm not really sure what you were expecting here. You have been given the obvious solution and now told the people who have given up their spare time to help you, that you can't implement anything!

Really what is the point???

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Use a variable that you can put true/false depending on if it's currently back up or not and change/show the no index based on that. Otherwise I'm going to agree with what Nigel is saying, don't ask for something if you can't fix it anyway.

[yaelslater]

Maybe it wasn't clear from my response, but the new information that I posted in response to your answer was discovered AFTER I posted my question. Definitely appreciated the advice -- thanks for your time.

[yaelslater]

That's a great point -- I've been thinking about that. My only concern is that doing a conditional noindex, might send confusing messages to Google. What are your thoughts on this? Appreciate the help!