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P.S. for got b) !!  If it's b), I always redirect to the www. page.  You can set that in webmaster tools and also do server side redirects.

Not 100% sure what you're asking - do you want to a) transfer value from an old domain to a new domain?  Or b) do you want to know whether you should redirect non-www. URLs to the www. equivalent?

If it's a), I'd keep the old site live for a couple of months and set up canonical tags on each page and point them towards the most relevant page on the new site.  Leave that to sink in for a couple of months, then I'd 301 pages on the old site to the new site (to the same pages you'd pointed them at with the canonical tag).  Leave the 301s in place for at least 180 days, after that you can kill the old site altogether.

Hi Kyle,

I'm afraid the site is currently in the test area and I can't reveal it until it's finished.  To be fair, you don't really need to see it - HTML 5 validation says that meta title etc is not valid.  The code for the meta was even copied and pasted directly from the old site, as that will not be changing in the new design.  Whereas the other site validates 100%, the new one built in HTML 5 doesn't.

Strange... and annoying!  Are they really killing this content off?

This seems pretty odd to me.  HTML 5 is not validating lots of the typical META content - including, amongst others, the META title.  This is typically seen as a standard 'must-have' for many SEOs, including the check-list on SEOmoz.

Has anybody else had this issue?  And of course, did you find a solution?

Thanks,

Mark

Hi Marcus,

Yes I'm afraid so, the client in question removed a word from their company name and therefore they need to change the URL.

I'm pretty happy that we'll be able to do it with the minumum of damage, just wanted to put the question out here in case someone had an alternative method based on experience.  I agree there's no perfect way to do it, however I think building some strength for the new site before killing the old one is as good a plan as any.

Thanks again.

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for your response - I had read that post with interest just before I posted my question (and gave you a thumbs up, of course!).

The issue is the old site has a PR of 5, the new site has a PR of 0!  So naturally I'm concerned that if we just kill the old site, we'll lose that considerable value and trust.

I've decided that I won't do the change of address in Webmaster Tools straight away, rather I think it's wise to get the on-site set up and do a month of off-site work to help build strength.  Then we'll do the full 301 / change of address next month.

Thanks for your input!

When changing domains, there's the obvious anxiety about sacrificing the value of your old domain.

A client recently changed domains, immediately killed the old site (did everything properly with 301s, Webmaster Tools etc etc etc) and lost rankings completely for weeks.  Turns out the site had been 'burnt' by the previous owner and it took a reconsideration request from Google before things recovered.  Cost them rankings and cash with extra PPC spend.

My question is: In order to avoid this potential hazard, what are your thoughts on submitting a change of address in Webmaster tools, but then leaving old site live for a few weeks to see how things pan out?

I have never tried it and it seems to go against the grain, but interested to hear other people's experiences and how they have managed to change domain with minimal temporary damage.

Thanks.

Some good advice from Google on changing domains here: https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=83105&hl=en

I have never 301'd 50 different sites either, however I wouldn't just leave it up to the 301s to inform Google - use the 'Change of Address' function in Webmaster Tools.  If you haven't already got Webmaster Tools set up on all of the old sites, I'd say that's an essential task to do first.  Then you can tell Google manually that the new site is replacing the old one/s.  You'll have to repeat the process 50 times but it's quick, easy and well worth the effort.

Google suggest that you leave the 301s in place on the old site/s for at least 180 days - but probably better to listen to Marcus and Alan; 12 months won't do any harm.

I'd also get the new site up and running concurrently for a few weeks first, if it's a new domain or if it hasn't had any content on it for a while.  A client recently immediately killed their old site upon launching the new domain, found out the new domain had previously been burnt, and it tool 6-8 weeks to recover rankings for the new site after a 'reconsideration request'.  It cost them organic traffic and extra PPC spend.

Maybe others would advise against this?  Realise it's potentially duplicate content but a short cross-over period would enable the old sites to continue providing temporary value as the new site registers.

Thanks both for your responses.  It's a strange one and I can only assume that these pages remain in Google's index - I have checked many link sources and found that the links do not exist and therefore haven't done since the page was deleted.  It seems ridicilous that you should have to 301 every page you delete, there are literally 500+ of these phantom links to non-existant URLs and the site is changing all the time.

I have opted to add a 'no index' meta to the 404s and also encourage them to delete from index by adding the pages to the robots.txt file.

Let's see if it works - I'll post on here when I know for sure so other people with the same question can see the outcome.

Thanks again, Damien and Steven.

Nothing unexpected there...

Have an issue with a large number of 'Not Found' webpages being listed in Webmaster Tools.  In the 'Detected' column, the dates are recent (May 1st - 15th).  However, looking clicking into the 'Linked From' column, all of the link sources are old, many from 2009-10.

Furthermore, I have checked a large number of the source pages to double check that the links don't still exist, and they don't as I expected.

Firstly, I am concerned that Google thinks there is a vast number of broken links on this site when in fact there is not.

Secondly, why if the errors do not actually exist (and never actually have) do they remain listed in Webmaster Tools, which claims they were found again this month?!

Thirdly, what's the best and quickest way of getting rid of these errors?  Google advises that using the 'URL Removal Tool' will only remove the pages from the Google index, NOT from the crawl errors.  The info is that if they keep getting 404 returns, it will automatically get removed.  Well I don't know how many times they need to get that 404 in order to get rid of a URL and link that haven't existed for 18-24 months?!!

Thanks.

The answer appears to be that there's no problem - http://searchengineland.com/how-many-301s-are-too-many-16960

Hi Philip, thank you for your quick response.

To be honest, I don't expect anything from them.  I am not managing these domains, my concern is with their main site.  They have bought the new domains for one reason or another and have asked me what the implications of putting 301 redirects to their main site would be.  Obviously putting content on there would be a good idea, however if I suggest that I'll be opening Pandora's Box!

I suppose the question would be, if they do put 301s on these domains, will Google see this as 'spammy'?

Thanks again.

A client owns around 10 different domains, each a slightly different version of their company name.  The main site is itself a new domain, therefore they'd like to know what the implications of redirecting the 10 other domains to the main one would be.

Any thoughts?  I have never done this before, so interested to know whether a) there's any benefit and b) if there is a penalty for implementing too many domain 301s.

Thanks.

Thank you both, much appreciated.  Their rankings have suffered in the last two weeks and this coincides with their developers creating all this duplicate content - let's see if this fixes that issue!

Thanks again.

This may sound like a stupid question, however it's important that I get this 100% straight.

A new client has nearly 6k duplicate page titles / descriptions.  To cut a long story short, this is mostly the same page (or rather a set of pages), however every time Google visits these pages they get a different URL.  Hence the astronomical number of duplicate page titles and descriptions.

Now the easiest way to fix this looks like canonical linking.  However, I want to be absolutely 100% sure that Google will then recognise that there is no duplicate content on the site.  Ideally I'd like to 301 but the developers say this isn't possible, so I'm really hoping the canonical will do the job.

Thanks.

I'm sure many people would say yes, that is spammy, however in my experience that works better than not including a keyphrase at all.  My advice would be to do it, see what the results are, but be prepared to change it back if Google decides this is dodgy.

Ha unfortunately they are for real!  I have to confess that I've never seen this done before, and it immediately alerts my 'dodgy' sensor!

Good point regarding doorway pages.  They are mini-sites with around 8 pages of their own, which then link to the framed site from the nav and the odd text link.  However each of the mini sites has duplicated the same content with the location name changed wherever it appears.  I assume therefore that you'd advise against linking to the main site?

The fact that the site has been framed raises a question if indeed Google does punish this as duplicate content:

If I were a spiteful black-hatter, could I not just frame a competitors site on loads of different domains and harm the original site's SERPs?  I guess in the same way I could do that anyway by copying all the content, so there is a real problem with measuring original/duplicate content.

Something I have not come across before, but hope others here are able offer advice based on experience:

A client has independently created a series of mini-sites, aimed at targeting specific locations.  The tactic has worked very well and they have achieved a large amount of well targeted traffic as a result.

Each mini-site is different but then in the nav, if you want to view prices or go to the booking page, that then links to what at first appears to be their main site.

However, you then notice that the URL is actually situated on the mini-site.  What they have done is 'framed' the main site so that it appears exactly the same even when navigating through this exact replica site.

Checking the code, there is almost nothing there - in fact there is actually no content at all.  Below the head, there is a piece of code:

  <frameset rows="*" framespacing=0 frameborder=0>
    <frame src="[http://www.example.com](view-source:http://www.yellowskips.com/)" frameborder=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0>

<noframes>Your browser does not support frames. Click [here](http://www.example.com) to view.noframes>

frameset>

Given that main site content does not appear to show in the source code, do we have an issue with duplicate content?  This issue is that these 'referrals' are showing in Analytics, despite the fact that the code does not appear in the source, which is slightly confusing for me.

They have done this without consultation and I'm very concerned that this could potentially be creating duplicate content of their ENTIRE main site on dozens of mini-sites.

I should also add that there are no links to the mini-sites from the main site, so if you guys advise that this is creating duplicate content, I would not be worried about creating a link-wheel if I advise them to link directly to the main site rather than the framed pages.

Thanks!

Like you, I always use the main 1 or 2 keyphrases for the logo alt.  I am also a bad man then!

I think, so long as the page is relevant to those keyphrases - which it really should be - it can't be that bad practice because in most cases you're saying what the main focus of the page is.  Perhaps I am kidding myself though?!