Q and A: Does Google prefer sub directories over sub domains?

Dear Kalena...

Topweddingsites.com main domain is doing fine in the serps but our state sub domains dropped from page one for all of our top keywords to page 5 and below. Trying to figure out - is it that Google has decided folders are a better way to do a portal like this over sub domains?

Donna

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Donna

As far as I know, Google doesn't have a preference when it comes to sites that use sub directories like http://www.yoursite.com/state/index.htm or sub domains like http://state.yoursite.com. Both versions are indexable. But something to keep in mind is that most search engines only index a certain number of sub levels deep on your site. So, for example, a page like http://www.yoursite.com/state/city/index.htm might get indexed, while http://www.yoursite.com/state/city/region/street/index.htm may not.

The closer your content is to the top level of your site, the more likely it will be found and indexed. It's also widely assumed that content closer to the top level is considered to be more important by Google and given more relevancy weight in Google's ranking algorithm. Many SEO experts insist that sub-domains are more effective than sub directories and rank better too.

As for your situation, I don't think it has anything to do with your use of sub domains. I think it has more to do with the fact that your State pages are all very similar to each other. For example http://ok.topweddingsites.com/ is almost identical to http://mi.topweddingsites.com/. Multiply that by 50 States and you've got yourself a serious duplicate content problem.

In their Webmaster Guidelines, Google specifically states:

"Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content."

My guess is that your State sub domains have tripped a duplicate content filter and have been slapped with a ranking suppression or penalty. If you review Google's definition of duplicate content, you'll see some helpful suggestions for fixing the problem.

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Q and A: Why are domains I don't own displaying my site content?

Dear Kalena...

My domain is normaschutt.com and I have had a static IP address assigned to it by GoDaddy.com since Christmas for SSL cert purposes. It works great. However, when you search for 'norma schutt photography' on Google, in addition to my legitimate listings and references, you come up with a couple of URLs (www.247-bingo.com and www.webuyazre.com) that is really pointing to my website and my content.

An NSLOOKUP on www.normaschutt.com, www.247-bingo.com, and www.webuyazre.com returns the same IP address for all 3. I do not own either of these other domains. I've called GoDaddy and they say my site is the only one with that IP and that it's not their problem and haven't been able to help. I first noticed this 2-3 months ago which is long enough for the search engines to update these listings, I would think.

What is causing this and what can I do?

Norma

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Norma

Oh dear! I've heard of situations like yours, but never actually seen one in action before. What you've got there is an IP/Name Server tangle. Here's what's happening:

1) All 3 domains were registered at www.godaddy.com

2) Normaschutt.com and webuyazre.com are sitting on the same IP address. Normaschutt.com has the following nameservers:

NS3.SECURESERVER.NET
NS4.SECURESERVER.NET

Webuyazre.com has these nameservers:

NS1.SECURESERVER.NET
NS2.SECURESERVER.NET

Essentially, both domains are sitting on the same server, on a shared IP address, with your domain treated as the primary domain from which to draw content.

3) 247-bingo.com has these nameservers:

PARK9.SECURESERVER.NET
PARK10.SECURESERVER.NET

meaning it is parked to another domain name on the same server, in this case yours. According to a Whois Lookup, this domain is actually owned by GoDaddy and for sale by GoDaddy so it IS their problem and you should give them grief until they fix it.

4) Google is treating 247-bingo.com as a stand-alone site and is caching it accordingly. The content is from your site and may already be treated as dupe content because that domain has a PageRank of zero. This doesn't appear to be hurting your site, but why risk it? Get GoDaddy to fix this ASAP.

5) Google is ignoring webuyazre.com in that the cache for that domain is actually from your domain. So Google already understand that webuyazre.com is on the same IP and is not the *real* domain and is indexing normaschutt.com instead. So don't worry too much about this one.

6) I'm not sure what GoDaddy's version of a static IP is, but I can assure you that they have not provided you with a dedicated IP address. If they had done that, you wouldn't be seeing any of these problems. You need to call them and ask to speak to a supervisor or someone who can sort out this mess for you.

If you are really concerned about webuyazre.com showing your site content, do a WhoIs Lookup on GoDaddy.com and contact the domain registrant. His details are listed as I checked. He may not even be aware that his domain is showing your site! If he's concerned, he'll also contact GoDaddy and insist on them sorting out the IP issue.


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Q and A: How do I create landing pages without creating duplicate content?

Dear Kalena...

I have a question about Google AdWords landing pages. I have done a campaign, sending people to pages on my site. I read everywhere that landing pages should reflect the ads & keywords and my web pages are too general. If I want to set up a unique landing page just for AdWords, how & where do I set it up without it being part of the main site? Because I don't want duplicate content.

As always, Thanks for your help.

Regards
Ros

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ros

Easy peasy. Simply include NoIndex, NoFollow robots meta tags in the HTML code of your landing pages, or put them in a sub-folder like www.site.com/PPC/ and prevent search robots from indexing that folder by excluding it in your robots.txt file.


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Q and A: How do I get search engines to recognize my main domain from the alias domains?

Dear Kalena...

I took out several domains that all pointed to one primary domain. A year on I have changed the content of my site completely and so the 'pointing domains' are totally irrelevant. Now however Yahoo have dropped my primary domain in the search results and only include one of the irrelevant domains. Could you advise how I would go about having the alias domains dropped and my primary domain reinstated with Yahoo?

Ade

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ade

A client of mine is facing the identical situation right now, but on Google. How big an issue this is really depends on your definition of "pointing" domains. If you merely have the alias domains on the same IP address as your main site, that may not suffice. Does your primary domain have a Google cache? If it doesn't, then Google and or Yahoo may be assuming one of your alias domains is your primary site and ignoring all other domains.

You should park all the aliases to the main domain in your hosting panel so that when the aliases are typed in to the browser URL field, they redirect straight to the primary domain or show the content being cached from the primary domain. When you look at the Google cache for your alias domains, they should each show the message "This is Google's cache for [primary domain]". If they don't, you haven't got the DNS set up properly to point to your primary domain.

The alternative is to use manual 301 redirects from the aliases to the main domain. Your .htaccess file will then instruct search bots of the preferred domain and the others should no longer be indexed. It might take a week or two for the search engines to make the connection and index the primary domain, but it will happen.

You can help things along by creating a sitemap for your primary domain and uploading it to Google's Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer. I recommend using the free XML Sitemaps Generator to create your sitemaps.

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Q and A: How do you avoid duplicate content problems with similar landing pages?

Dear Kalena...

My question is regarding your SiteProNews article Think Global Act Global, in particular your comment:

"What he should have done was to create a separate landing page using British English spelling and shipping/contact information applicable to persons overseas".

If you create a separate landing page and it has the same content apart from spelling differences, how do you avoid the problems of duplicate content?

Ros

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Ros

Nice to hear from you again! Because of their purpose, pay-per-click landing pages can contain almost identical content, particularly if you are split testing two or more pages with only a slight change to each. For this reason, I recommend that you prevent search engines from indexing landing pages. You can achieve this by sticking a noindex, nofollow robots tag on the pages or a safer option is to stick all your landing pages into a folder on your site and instruct search engines not to index that folder via your robots.txt file.

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Q and A: How do we stop our domains from competing with each other for search rankings?

Dear Kalena...

We recently constructed an optimised e-commerce site for a customer which initially had some great ranking results on the primary domain name (a .com) which we wanted to promote for a global market as a brand name. In the process we also picked up several keyword related domain names and pointed these in via A-record changes.

Unfortunately we now seem to have a pendulum effect going on between the non-primary domains and the primary ... one swings up Google the rankings, then the next, whilst the primary domain name raises its head occasionally but generally isn't ranking where it should be. We're obviously want to remove the secondary domain names from the index so that we score simply on the primary and are concerned that this activity could penalise us for duplicate site content ... am sure the answer is pretty simple, would appreciate a point in the right direction rather than us poke about in a 'try it and see' fashion!

Many thanks in anticipation
Rob

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Rob

It sounds to me like your question is actually : "How do we stop our domains from competing with each other for search rankings?"

It all comes down to the way you've set up your secondary domains. For starters, I don't know why you needed keyword-related domains unless it is for advertising reasons. You haven't sent me the domain info so I can only guess, but it sounds as though you have the same site content duplicated on multiple domain names and each of them is being indexed by Google. Effectively, this means your domains are competing with each other for rankings on the same search queries!

What you should have done (and should do immediately) is to park your secondary domains on the same IP as your primary domain so that search engines see the domains as a single site, index a single site and all your rankings and link popularity get attributed to your primary domain.

If you've got this set up correctly, when you view the Google cache of any of the domains, it will show your primary domain in the cached results page e.g."This is Google's cache of [primary url appears here]" or any parked domain entered in the browser URL field will automatically switch to your primary domain. Instructions for setting up multiple domain parking correctly can be found in this back issue of HighRankings Advisor.

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Q and A: How do I ensure the same pages on two different domains are indexed?

Dear Kalena...

I am starting out with two domains of the same name so I get international and local visitors sent by search engines. Quite often people look for local sites and local engines only list domains within that country's regional domain. So I have mydomain.com and mydomain.co.uk.

My problem is how to ensure that all pages are indexed. If I simply forward from .co.uk to .com then only .com is indexed. I could mirror both sites, but I'm not sure that works because I read on your blog that Google skips identical content sites?

Many Thanks,
Henri

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Henri

You're right that regional search engines and directories often only list country-specific domains and you have the right idea registering the local domain as well as the .com version. But there is no need to have both domains indexed if they contain identical content.

Best solution is to park the .co.uk site on the same IP as the .com so that you have a single site with two domains pointing to it. You should stick to promoting the .com of the site in all your online submission efforts, except for regional marketing/advertising and the regional engines that require a country-specific TLD. In those cases, you should submit your .co.uk domain which points or forwards to the .com content. You can set it up so that the .co.uk domain actually switches to the .com domain in the browser bar if anyone types it in or clicks on a link from the .co.uk site.

The reason you should only promote one domain to be indexed is to avoid any duplicate content issues and to ensure your site's link popularity isn't divided between two sites (which can happen if you are promoting multiple domains and other sites start to link to both). If you use domain forwarding as described above and anyone links to your .co.uk domain, it's my understanding that the link popularity gets passed on to your .com domain.

If you decide to continue hosting two separate sites containing the same content, it is likely that search engines will try to determine which domain is more important, index it and ignore the other completely. Why let the search engines determine which domain you want promoted?

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Q and A: How can I stop link farms from linking to us?

Dear Kalena...

I'm using Yahoo Site Explorer to check inlinks to client sites. On one site, I'm noticing inlinks from PR0 sites that are just listings of URLs and fake 'directories' that are there to pick up adsense dollars. They were not submitted by us or our client. My questions: Is there any way to remove your site from these types of pages? Do the owners ever honor any requests? Is there any way to minimize the impact of inlinks from sites like these?

Keri

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Keri

Thanks for the caffeine injection! Re your questions:

1) You can try. If you can find a way to contact them, ask them to remove the link. A good trick I learned is to look up the domain ownership details via a WhoIs lookup and cc your email to the admin, tech and registrant emails. That shows them that you are serious about your request and have done your research about them. Most likely they will ignore your request, but you never know.

2) I wouldn't worry too much. Google and other engines are good at filtering out links from low quality sites and any impact they have on your site's overall link popularity is minimal. However, if you find sites are duplicating chunks of your client's content using site scraping, that's considered an infringement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and you can report this to Google via this link.

Overall, I wouldn't spend too much time concerned about either issue. As Google say on their own Webmaster Blog:

"Don't fret too much about sites that scrape (misappropriate and republish) your content. Though annoying, it's highly unlikely that such sites can negatively impact your site's presence in Google."

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Q and A: Why doesn't my web site rank for any specific keyword?

Dear Kalena...

I have a web site www.narendran.co.nr, this web site does not getting any ranking in search engine for any specific keyword. Could I know what is the reason for this?

Naren

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Naren

Oh boy, where do I start? Here goes:

1) The site is powered by www.freedomain.co.nr which uses URL redirection to display your content. As far as search engines are concerned, there is no site at www.narendran.co.nr.

2) The site uses Frames to display the redirected content. Frames are notorious for causing problems for search engines. If you want your site indexed, you don't use frames.

3) The content displayed on www.narendran.co.nr via the URL redirection actually comes from another site: www.narenmunna.com.

4) Both domains listed above display identical content. Even if they could index both sites (which they can't), most search engines would choose to only index and list one site.

If you want your site to be taken seriously by search engines and users, you need to use your own domain and host your site properly, not piggy-back it on some free service and duplicate the content of another site.

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Q and A: I've cleaned up the site spam so why isn't our home page being indexed by Google?

Dear Kalena...

Hope you're happy and healthy. Thanks so much for your help last time. I cleaned the hidden text off the page and we got re-indexed quite quickly.

But now we seem to have dropped out again. Although some of our subsidiary pages are indexed, the homepage does not seem to be, unless I'm searching incorrectly.

Any ideas?

Best wishes
Robin
www.breatheonline.com/

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Robin

Ok, a couple of things:

1) You obviously have two domains pointing to the same content (www.breatheonline.com and www.breatheyoga.co.uk). If you view the cache of your .com home page, you'll see that Gooogle produces the cache of the .co.uk home page. It seems that Google has decided that your UK domain is the main one and seems to be caching only that site.

2) A "site:URL" search for each domain shows that 22 pages from your .co.uk domain have been indexed while 4 pages from your .com domain have been indexed. To have Google index two domains with identical content is a dangerous thing because one will usually be suppressed and you rarely have the control over which one. I'm not sure about your DNS and IP setup, but you need to decide which domain you wish to promote in search engines and park the other domain to the same IP as the main one. You can also inform Google which site is your main domain via the Sitemaps Protocol. Check out the free XML sitemaps creator that I recommend.

3) Google is indexing and caching your home page at www.breatheyoga.co.uk just fine, from what I'm seeing. You simply need to do a search for your full URL. The last cache of the page was taken as recently as 26 November.

4) Once you've sorted out your domain issue, it might be a good idea to prepare an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Sitemaps as explained in Google's Webmaster Tools area.

5) Some of your incoming link partners are pointing to the .com site while others point to the .co.uk site. This is diluting your link popularity. Decide which domain is more important to promote via search engines and ask all your link partners to change their links to point to that site. Make sure you do the same thing with all your internal site links.

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Q and A: How different does each page on my site have to be to NOT be classed as a cookie cutter page?

Dear Kalena...

I have a website like the one Lucy was talking about, a bottom up pyramid with each of my entry pages with different key words title and each page is optimised for different search terms, however the body copy is almost the same on each page as you can't say much different about photography.

My question is: how different would each page have to be not to be classed as a cookie cutter type page and be penalized by Google? I do have different titles, pictures and use different keywords and links with keywords throughout the main body copy but the copy is much the same on each page? please help - as it sounds like a lot of work to go back and change each page if they are already different enough not to be penalized.

Best wishes

Sydney

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Sydney

I think you can say enough to fill a lot of pages about photography if you put your mind to it. Why don't you take a closer look at each of the pages where you feel the body copy is too similar and focus on a different aspect of photography on each one?

That said, you are unlikely to be penalized by Google unless pages on your site are virtually identical and they would most likely simply ignore one of the duplicates anyway. To be on the safe side, try to keep at least 30% unique content on each page.

Having pages containing content that is too similar is not so much going to attract penalties as it is going to sabotage your site's ability to be found be a broader number of keywords and phrases. Have a look at some of the most popular photography sites and see how their page content is divided up.

Consider creating a blog about photography so you can talk about a new topic and add a new page to your site every day. This will create more natural doorways to your site and you will rely less on visitors coming in via a few major search keywords and instead attract more visitors via a wider range of unique keywords and phrases (what's known as the long tail).

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Q and A: Would translating my site into another language be considered duplicate content?

Dear Kalena...

I have read an old thread in a forum today:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=7970&highlight=multilingual

I found the information very useful but would like your advice on my current situation. I have a .co.uk domain which does very well for UK, and now I want the .co.jp domain to feature. The co.jp is listed in Google.jp, but hosted in the UK.

If I replicate (obviously translate) the .co.uk site would I run the risk of being penalised? What would you do in my situation?

Appreciate your advice on this one!

Kind Regards

Ashley

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ashley

If the uk site is translated into Japanese, then my understanding is that the content would not be treated as duplicate as it would contain different characters. It should be indexed by the search engines and ranked appropriately to appear on their regional language versions (e.g. Google.co.jp)

Hope this helps!

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Q and A: You misunderstood the question

Dear Kalena...

I think you misunderstood the question. I was wondering how does Plentyoffish show adsense about mortgages if the only content is about dating.

I don't own plentyoffish.

Peepersmall

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Peepersmall

Ah I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I don't see mortgage related ads on that site now, but it is likely that some of the text on the page related to mortgages or housing or someone discussing house prices or something in their article/blurb. That would be the only way I'm aware of to trigger related ads.

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Q and A: How do I use two domains without creating duplicate content?

Dear Kalena...

Very interesting site - congratulations! A question.

The island of Koh Samui is usually spelt as I have in this sentence. It has an acceptable, but less well used, spelling of Ko Samui.

When we acquired our url www.kosamuiproperties.com the preferred spelling of www.kohsamuiproperties.com was not available and at that time suitable suffixes were also not available.

I have since acquired www.kohsamuiproperties.com but the original name is now reasonably well placed in search engines and obviously comes lower down the order to someone searching for Koh Samui rather that Ko Samui.

I read your article about Google ignoring a site that was duplicated so I do not want to do that, but how can I safely and successfully use the www.kohsamuiproperties.com url in conjunction with the first, get it listed high in the search engines without creating a duplicate site?

Your advice would be much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Harry

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Harry

Easy peasy. I'm assuming you want to promote www.kohsamuiproperties.com as your main site (in search engines, emails, on business cards, in marketing materials etc.) from now on? If so, you need to:

1) Set up a hosting account for www.kohsamuiproperties.com with the same hosts and DNS servers as your existing site and set up all your new email addresses etc to reflect this.

2) Set up a 301 permanent redirect in your hosting control panel for all pages on http://kosamuiproperties.com to redirect to http://kohsamuiproperties.com. See this thread for more information on how to do this.

3) Set up mail forwarding from your email addresses @kosamuiproperties.com to be redirected to your new email addresses @kohsamuiproperties.com. You should be able to do this in one hit by logging into your existing hosting Control Panel and setting the default address for all email coming to any address@kosamuiproperties.com to be forwarded to an address of your choice @kohsamuiproperties.com. This forwarding can be switched off when you're confident your new email addresses are well known.

4) Start promoting your new domain! No need to resubmit to search engines as the redirect will alert them to your new site. You may see a drop in rankings for a while until Google indexes the redirects and makes the connection about your new domain, but this should only be short term, unless Google applies the aging delay for new sites (which may cause your site to be sandboxed for 6 to 9 months). You won't lose any traffic from old URLs listed in the search engines or outdated links because visitors will be automatically redirected to your new site. But you will lose link popularity unless you contact all sites linking to your old domain and ask them to update their link to reflect your new domain.

If you would rather not lose your current rankings and links, don't want to risk a visit to the Google Sandbox and are happy to keep promoting your existing domain via search engines, simply park the new domain to your existing domain by setting it up on the same IP address and using the "parking" option in your hosting Control Panel. You can then promote your new domain everywhere except search engines and people will automatically be taken to your existing site when they type in the new domain or click on a link for the new domain.

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