I have a client whose previous web design company has made some massive errors in SEO. The client has 8 domains registered and all content is identitcal to each other, keyword density is also around 60% !! Needless to say, Google has penalized these sites total out of the SERP's. The client is very prominent in their field and there is really no excuse for them not to be in the top 5 in the SERP's. I figure, the best way to get things back on track would be to do pick the most relevant domain (keyword wise or with the most 'quality' external links) and do a bund of 302 redirects from the other domains, sort out the content problems, and pray that Google gives forgiveness over time. Does this approach sound like the way to go? Thanks for any ideas on the subject.
First tell me that did your client had any rankings previously for some keyword in Google if what then what and for what keyword.
Following the strategies and Wait for some time.. This is the only solution right now.. Link building should also work at some extends..
Not sure how they ranked previously as I have taken over this account only days ago. The keywords they are targetting are easily achievable. One of my own sites even ranks for the keywords they are after and I haven't even optimised my page for this. So, this should not be a problem. Do you think that 302's are the best way to go given they are duplicating pages all over the place?
You would need to use 301's. You need to determine if they ranked before and have been deleted from the SERPs. If that is the case, you will want to do a reinclusion request AFTER you clean everything up. Be honest about what you have found, and what you have done to correct the issues. I would dig deeper to find out what other shady practices might have taken place before you took over the account.
Look having same content on many sites doesn't mean that you will get penalized. Today article marketing is a very good method for quality link building. You write an article related to your industry and submit it to web and people related to your industry who like article publish the article on their site also, so this doesn't means that every site that copies your articles gets penalized. Make sure that if your clients sites have any links coming to it with your keyword as anchor text.
The thing with these sites is that they are 'carbon copies' of each other. All sites are idential HTML code and content.
Well as far as I know that Google wont penalize the site even then Google will only penalize you if you are doing anything unethical to boost your rankings in its search results. Okay so whataver is the case just put a 301 direct to main site and continue doing link building for that main site only.
You need to verify if they ranked earlier than and have been deleted from the SERPs. If that is the case, you will want to do a reinclusion request following you clean the lot up.
Remove all the pages, data. Create new content renaming the old pages. Don't use duplicate content. Use only unique content. Send reconsideration request through Google WMT. Maintain keyword density 3 to 4 %. Don't make keyword stuffing. It helps u.
I just noticed that one of the sites is PR2 and the rest are PR0. It would be best to 301 redirect the sites to the the PR2 site wouldn't it? This would give the other sites PR2 also would it not?
It may gives u PR in future. But, do u think that it is a good idea? I don't think that redirecting all domains to one domain. People do 301 redirection only when they want to permanently move but not to gain PR. Its a bad idea.
I would start by figuring out which of the domains has the most inbound links. If one site has substantially more inbound links than the other 7 then I would likely pick that site as my "main" domain going forward to minimize the number of redirects. If they all have roughly the same number of links then I would pick the domain which I think would best serve your site from an SEO and/or customer perspective... i.e. the domain that exactly matches a keyword phrase you want to rank for or a domain that is catchie from a marketing perspective or easy for users to remember and type. Once I knew which site is to be my "main" domain I would implement 301 (NOT 302) redirects from each individual page on the secondary domains to the equivalent page on the "main" domain. This can be done easily using Mod Rewrite if they are hosted on Apache. You could place something like the following in the root .htaccess of each of the 7 secondary domains: This will route every request for page X on domains1-7 to page X on the "main" domain. Once the redirects are in place, I would fix all of the content on the "main" domain so that it does not appear spammy and is NOT doing anything that might remotely be considered black hat. Once the main domain is ready for prime time, I would the submit a request for reconsideration at Google. They should lift the penalties if all secondary domains are being redirected to the "main" domain and the "main" domain is free of spam or other blackhat techniques. This is EXACTLY what a 301 is for. It's not a bad idea as long as the client owns all 8 domains and you are using 301 redirects to eliminate duplicate content. The fact that it helps the main domain regain the PR from the other sites is not a negative. Where people get in trouble with using 301s to gain PR is when they buy another domain that has backlinks and then redirects those to their own site... THEN Google frowns on this. But if someone owns 8 domains and is shutting 7 of them down in favor of focusing work on a single domain, 301 redirects are definitely the way to go.
Hi Canonical, I know 301 redirection. It is a good idea with in site and when client want to maintain only a single domain in place of 8 domains. But, when client need 8 domains and to gain PR for the remaining domains if he use 301 redirection it is a bad idea. Is it suggested by u??
I believe Matt Cutts would tell you that if you owned 8 domains for some time that ALL had the same content that: 1) it would be best to shut down 7 of the 8 domains and 2) it would be ok to 301 redirect the URLs on the 7 domains being shutdown to the equivalent URLs on the 1 remaining domain. Where using 301s will get you in trouble is, for example, if you own a single domain and then buy 7 existing domains that had sites owned by someone else (with totally different but possibly related content) and THEN you turned around and 301 redirected those URLs on the 7 domains you just bought to your main domain. The difference is that in THIS case it is quite obvious that you bought the domains so that you can 301 redirect their inbound links to your main one to gain PR and/or traffic. I think in the OP's case that it is totally ok to redirect the 7 domains that are being shut down because the same person owned all 8 of them and the same content was being rendered on all 8. They are shutting down the duplicate sites and going forward with a single domain. I think Google can see a difference in intent. A lot of rookie webmasters make this mistake. They know nothing about SEO and throw up multiple sites - different domain but exact same content. So it's common and acceptable for 301 redirects to be used to eliminate duplicate content across sites just like it is acceptable to use them to eliminate duplicate content within a site (for URL canonicalization). I believe this practice in the case of the OP will withstand a manual review by Google and be seen as an acceptable solution to eliminate the duplicate sites. There is nothing sneakie or blackhat being done from a 301 redirect perspective IMO. The spam still needs to be addressed on the remaining site though. But that is just my opinion... Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I think this should be approached a little different. If all 8 of the domain names are relevant to the field your client is in then why not keep all of them up and running? I think flushing out all the content throwing up fresh new content to all the 8 domains maybe even doing a little minor redesign to the sites would be the right way to approach this. I mean whats better then having 8 domain names ranked in the top 10 of any search keyword that is relevant to the product/services being offered? Imagine searching for widgets and 8 of the 10 first displayed pages are your clients i think that would make him super happy! But on the flip side it could take a lot of work and effort to making things happen to such a scale.