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When I visit https://www.kimwist.com/ it's spinning into a loop and doesn't display the site.  You can check it at http://www.redirect-checker.org/ and see what I'm talking about.  It looks like it's 301ing to itself.  I'm wondering if you've set a redirection to go to https that's trying to do it if the URL itself is https in which case you'd want to switch it to point to http.

I haven't tried All-In-One (though I now plan to) but I have found success with Schema Creator by Raven.

Totally agree with Daniel on Breadcrumb NavXT.

Sorry about that code.  Ordinarily I'd have had a chance to test it but didn't have a test site ready for that type of testing.

Thinking about it further, an actual redirect won't work due challenge/response on the certificate not being installed.  If you load the site in a new browser you'll see what I'm talking about.

If the site were mine (or a clients of course) I'd recommend getting a certificate setup and redirecting the whole thing to HTTPS now.  If you don't want to do that the certificate will at least light up the HTTPS site directly (i.e. without the insecure warning) which will allow it to be redirected properly.

That said ... you do have the canonical tags on the pages properly so a duplicate content warning will be a false positive in that the content is indeed duplicated but Google knows that the HTTPS is the primary source as far as I can tell.  Your site is going into a redirect loop on HTTPS so I can't double check but it appears as though it should from the way it's displaying in the source.  Happy to double check after the loop is corrected.

Dave

You wouldn't be setting up the canonicals in the htaccess file so that may be where you're hitting a road block.  If you saw references to the htaccess file that would likely be in reference to setting up redirects from https to http to eliminate the error.    What tech is your site built on?  With that I'll probably be able to point you in the right direction.

That said, If you do just want to setup the redirection via htaccess you should be able to use the following code:

<code>RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}</code>

Note: the code doesn't come out right here so you'll want to visit the link below to see how it should be formatted.

I need to note that I haven't had a chance to test it but it does look right.  I'm far more familiar with the code to go the other way.  The initial source of the code (credit where it's due) is at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8371/how-do-you-redirect-https-to-http.

Hope that helps.

Dave

Hi galwaygirl.

I'm going to be PMing you my thoughts as I've taken a bit of a peek at your backlink profile and my advice is specific only to your scenario and might be taken wrong and applied to others incorrectly if anyone else read it.

Dave

Which manual action notice did you get?  I'm assuming from what you noted that it's the user-generated spam notice but thought it better to check before replying.  The only other one I can guess might apply was the unnatural links penalty. If it was the unnatural link penalty then you'll have to wait for the next Penguin update but if you can confirm the penalty I'm happy to look into it further.

Regards.

Dave

HI Alyssa, Dave here.

I know you may not want to give out your URL publically but if you can send me your URL as a private message I'm happy to look into it specifically as I'd hate to give the wrong answer.  I'll answer it here in this thread so it can serve as useful to others but I'll keep the URL to myself.

Dave

My pleasure Randy.

I don't know the specific scenario you're talking about obviously but I'd recommend first checking under:

system > configuration > web > url options

Majento shouldn't be generating a 302 on every page but I'll be the first to say that Majento also isn't my strong suit.  I don't like the sounds of it however as a 302 can bleed out your PageRank.

At what I'm hearing I'd recommend for the 301s you're setting up now - point them to the final target.  Even if Majento was doing a 301 I'd still recommend this.  Think of it like you're asking me for directions and I know both the final destination and another guy who does too.  Would you rather I just told you where to go or pointed at the other guy?

That said, hopefully someone can come up with a more specific Majento answer for you.

You're bringing up a subject that's much disputed in the SEO community as I'm sure you well know.  I note this so you'll take my answer as educated opinion rather than fact.  Before we get into the exact question you're answering it's worth noting a hangout recently in which John Mueller answers a different but related question.  In the hangout he was asked whether Google uses onsite user actions as a factor.  His answer was "no" and noted that he doesn't believe they know what people are doing in the context of filling out a form or making a purchase and that it's not used as a ranking factor.  Conversion and goal tracking aside I choose to believe him as factoring this in would force Google to compare apples and oranges with sites that use Google Analytics sending different signals than those that do not.  The reason I mention this is that while he answered that questions and I believe he did so honestly, there's a bigger point in there that ties to your question.  So let's get to that ...

Does Google Use Clickthrough Rates?

To answer this we have to answer two things ...

1 - can clickthrough rates provide a positive signal on a site's likelihood in addressing the searchers need, and
2 - can this create false positives?

The answer to both of these questions is "yes".  If a site appears in the search results and is clicked by a user that is a signal that the site likely matches the users need.  If I searched for "blue widgets" and a site with a title like "Exclusively Red Widgets | OnlyRedWidgets.com" appeared in the results then it would likely have a low clickthrough rate and that can be used as a signal.  The signal shouldn't count as an overall quality-of-site signal, just a signal based on that specific query as the site might be a great supplier of red widgets.  Now, this leads us to the second question, can it give false positives?

Let's image that red widget site used the title "Red & Blue Widgets Galore" but still only sold red widgets.  This is where functions to address the second question would be necessary and that is tracking the user's site behavior.  Since John has said they don't do that in Analytics or, by extension, Chrome, etc. use (and again - I believe him) then we have to look to Google themselves.  We can see in the SERP URLs themselves that Google is tracking which sites get clicks.  Past that they also know (just like you or I do) when that user is back at Google.  So while they may not be tracking the users behavior on a specific site for the SERPs it's certainly possible (dare I say "probable") that they are tracking the time from the click to the site to the searcher's next appearance at Google.  Whether said searcher has remained on your site or simply read a blog post there and followed a link to a different article is irrelevant, they have found what they wanted.

What I see is four core scenarios:

1 - the user clicks a link in the SERPs and returns quickly to Google and selects another site under the same query.  This would be a negative relevancy signal.
2 - the user clicks a link in the SERPs and after a good deal of time returns to Google and selects another site under the same query.  This would indicate a positive experience where the user was simply seeking additional information or options.
3 - the user clicks a link in the SERPs and after either a short or long period of time returns to Google and adjusts their query to a related but different one.  This would indicate the user needs to refine their search to find what they want and send neither a positive nor negative signal.
4 - the user clicks a link in the SERPs and after either a short or long period of time returns to Google and adjusts their query to a completely unrelated one.  This would indicate the user found what they were looking for and has moved on to another task sending a positive signal.

So to your question, I believe the answer is a conditional "yes".  Clickthroughs can send a positive signal to Google however that requires that the user found what they wanted to boost the relevancy for that phrase.

The real perk here is this, whether you believe this explanation or not (and again - this is opinion) the actions you need to take are the same.  Regardless of whether clickthroughs or even onsite time are a ranking signal the purpose of your site is to attract clicks and satisfy the users so the actions you need to take are the same regardless.  One has to love those types of scenarios.

I'd take a slightly different approach to solving your issue though blocking the pages will work.  My only concern with doing that is that if you do any weight to that page will evaporate from your site as opposed to being passed back internally.  You won't be finding the pages in Wordpress as they're auto-generated and I'm guessing there's only one author which is why the author archive would be the same as the general archive.

Assuming you're using Yoast you can remedy the issue by simply going to the Titles & Metas area, selecting the "Archives" tab and check the box next to "Add noindex, follow to the author archives".  This will allow the PageRank to pass but the page won't be indexed as duplicate content.  There are other types of pages int eh same area you can do the same thing for.

As an aside, you should change your username.  From the example you've given I'm assuming you've left the user as "admin".  Since that's the default for Wordpress it makes it easier for attacks to brute-force their way in as they already have the username.  This can be done via phpMyAdmin to just change it but if you're not comfortable in there you can simply create a different user with Admin privileges and delete the old "admin" making sure to attribute all posts and pages to the new user.

I shouldn't have to say this but just in case something goes wrong BE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR DATABASE !

I assumed I'd be able to deal with it easier too.

Via Search Console try to "Fetch As Google" and assuming that works without errors use the submit function.  You'll know very quickly whether you've got technical issues and get the page into the index very quickly.

If your current site is secure and you want to redirect to the new one then yes, you'll need to keep your SSL cert.  If you don't you'll get a certificate error and the redirection will hit that snag and perhaps worse, the link weight will hit the same one.  Someone linking to the non-https page will redirect but the https will generate the issue. Annoying I know ... now you get to pay for two certificates.

If anyone else knows a way around this I haven't thought of I'd love to hear it but I had to deal with this a few months back and the only solution was to setup the old domain with it's own hosting and certificate and deal with the redirections at that level.

What I mean by one-to-one redirects is redirecting each page on one domain (the ones with incoming traffic or links) to the equivalent page on the other domain.  They are standard redirects.

Ex:  fullcompanyname.com/category/product1 to compname.com/cat/product1

Hope that helps.

I have to agree with Oleg in going one-to-one redirects of any pages with links or incoming traffic.  Most hosting plans will let you have multiple domains so setup the one you're "not using" and just one-to-one them in the htaccess file.  Remember - it doesn't need to be every page on the site, just the pages with links or entry traffic.

Speaking on links, when you're choosing the domain to use as the primary I'd be sure to very strongly consider which one has the best link profile.  A bit is lost in a 301 so better not to lose that.

If they're all in a folder (like /blog/ or /articles/) then I'd just go with a site: query (ex - site:competitorsite.com/blog/ which will give youa  list of all the pages in that folder Google knows about.  If they have tags etc. you can also remove those qwiht a negative (i.e. site:examplesite.com/blog/ -site:examplesite.com/blog/tags/).

You can also look for common text just on the posts ("written by" for example) and query:

"written by" site:examplesite.com

Cheers !

If it's your site head over to Webmaster Tools.  The query data will tell you where your clicks are coming from.

If it's a competitor I've found SpyFu to be the best tool for that one.  Not perfect, but decent.

And what kind of posts are you talking about?  Post on their site?  Guest blogs?

I assume the old domain has a penalty and thus the concern with the redirection (not judging, just noting the premise of the answer).  While in these events I am hesitate to connect the dots at all, going back to my affiliate marketing days (when I had a much more cowboyish approach to SEO) I would have done the following:

1 - Put up a one page splash page on the old site.
2 - Disallow the site in the robots.txt file
3 - Put the noindex,nofollow on the splash page
4 - Use a meta refresh on the splash page directed to the new site
5 - if it was a link issue add a disavow file on both domains for the links to the old domain

The splash page should read something like, "This site has been moved to a new domain.  If you are not redirected in x seconds (x being however long you've selected for the refresh) please click here." (where "click here is a nofollowed link to your new domain.

This all said, anytime you link two domains there is always the chance the Google will connect the dots now or in the future so there is an element of risk.  You have clearly shown that you don't want weight passing so that's a perk but it all depends on risk tolerance.

I'll be interested to hear any additional thoughts or techniques.  I haven't done anything like this in many many years.

Good luck !!!

Well, you got a welcome from the RandFish himself.

Take his advice to heart.