Hello Friends, New for me, Perhaps not new for some experienced SEOs. Two of my sites are running from same folder. Both the sites are same, i.e one is copy of another. Now is it good from SEO point? When I check google cache for one site it show me the cache of other site. What should I do in this case? In this situation, will google treat them as Mirror sites? Which one should I optimize to get better results or should I optimize them or not? Waitng for your good suggestions.
you should never have two identical pages available in two places if possible. why are you running an identical copy of your site in the first place? use a 301 redirect from one to the other. this is the best way to deal with this sort of situation.
Many places say you should avoid "duplicate content" but the jury is still out deciding if that affects your SERP
Thank You, I think 301 redirect will not be a good idea as, soon both the sites will have differnt content. 301 redirect will kill the domain. Also, both the sites are running from same IP. I had seen few sites running with different extentions, like google.co.uk, google.com etc. How to deal in this situation? Is it unethical to run different sites in one folder with same IP and different CONTENT?? Pls Suggest.
Do you mean one ftp? If so not with different content as lots of people with dedicated and or VPS servers do that for example.
Thanks whateverandever2, These sites are running on same IP and in one folder, such that each one is the mirror of the other. But one is .com site while other one is .co.uk site. I had discussed with one of the experienced SEO and he told me that the sites can be banned anytime. But these sites are running as it is from Last 9 - 10 months. I can't understand the reason why they are not banned if its unethical?? Suggest Pls..
Running two sites with different content from the same folder would be difficult from an organizational standpoint, and I'm not sure why you would want to cause yourself that much grief. If you have reasons, well... I just hope they're good enough to warrant the confusion that will eventually occur ('Hmmm...was this the css file for site A or site B?') Having two URLs that point to the same index.xxx page is probably not that harmful because the pages will have exactly the same size and exactly the same time and date stamp, therefore it wouldn't be a bad guess to say that they are the same file. This probably explains why you haven't been nailed for duplicate content. You could always experminet by copying your site into another folder and pointing the .co.uk domain to these duplicate files (which now have a different time-date stamp) to see if it gets de-indexed.
Thanks Tim, Are you sure that it's fine? Do you have some evidence or expeience in this? Waiting for your suggestions.
Well, my suggestion is to use a 301 redirect on one of the domains as disgust suggests. That's what I do with after5webdesign.com and afterfivewebdesign.com. Am I sure you won't have one of the domains dropped (or worse yet have some pages from one domain dropped while others pages from your alternate domain are dropped)? No. How ever, what factors does an SE consider when detecting duplicate content? What info is regularly requested and viewed by an SE? If we are looking at a static html page, how could we tell if it is the same page or merely duplicate content? If the date/time stamp is the same, it is probably the same page we looked at yesterday and not a duplicate, right? If the only difference is the URL, we can assume the "funkiness" is in the url and not the page. On the other hand, if you use a CMS or other generated content, the time/date stamp is no longer a reliable indicator, and your risks are increased. The best I can tell you is that you are probably safe. Do I have proof? No. I've never seen a need to place two sites in the same folder without using a 301 redirect. I suppose one thing you could do is point one domain to its future folder and place a simple page in there explaining that your country specific content is still in the works, but in the meantime they can check out the content on the more geneic .com domain. Using 2 domains for the same site withourt a 301 is always a risk. If you have good reason to take that risk, then do so. If you don't have a good reason to take that risk, why do it?
Hi, Thanks for your useful suggestions. I am doing research on this topic and will share every thing on this forum. I am expecting some help of elder seo members of this forum. I recently submitted the sitemap of gibraltarbreaks.co.uk in Google sitemaps but was amazed to see: URL not allowed (Line 4) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/hotdeals.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 10) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/ourcompany.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 16) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/contact_us.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 22) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/mytravel.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 28) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/sitemap.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 34) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 40) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/must_see.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 46) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/duty_free.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 52) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/getting_around.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. URL not allowed (Line 58) with URL http://www.gibraltarbreaks.com/entertainment.aspx This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location. This means Google is treating the two sites as one and prefference is given to gibraltarbreaks.com. So, its showing cache for gibraltarbreaks.com, if checked gibraltarbreaks.co.uk More over Yahoo is giving importance to Gibralatarbreaks.co.uk in its searches and .com is no where in SERPS. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks, Regards