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Like many here I started making websites in 1997 by using the free website providers. As each became popular, and maxed out it's bandwidth limit, I opened similar sites at other free site providers to act as backups. Cheapskate eh?
Then we got serious, bought our own domain, and began paying for top quality bandwidth. We simply redirected the legacy sites to the new domain by static links, and forgot about them. Many had been picked up by the bots, and still provide traffic, some are even in Dmoz.
Sadly, this has resulted in Y! penalising the main domain, despite our genuine pleas of innocence. The legacy sites are in Y!, but not the main domain.
I think the only way to satisfy Y! is to delink them from the main domain entirely, and beg. We currently have blank pages on the legacy sites with a static link, and site moved notice. No funny business. We cannot use 301 .htaccess redirects on the free sites.
What has prompted me to post here, is concern that Google results for our main keyword show us in the top 5 out of ten positions, without any deliberate effort to do this. Since 4 of those are our freesite blank pages with static links, I'm concerned that Google will soon penalize the main domain too. So I want to act promptly to avoid that.
Question. What would you advise? Delink the sites entirely before G zaps them. I suspect they will soon change policy to penalize the use of perceived doorway pages.
What can we do to retain the traffic in some way, if not the PR.
All I can think of, is simply build new sites on them with fresh material, and not link them to our main domain at all. Punters get the information, even if our domain doesn't get the traffic and PR.
Our main domain will lose PR, and traffic, but at least I can sleep soundly.
Suggestions welcome from De Bono readers, but nothing dodgy please.
I think many people are in this boat.
>some are even in Dmoz.
Have you asked for the URL to be updated there?
Get your backlinks updated to point to the new domain, that's all I can think of that won't backfire right now. Eventually, the big search providers may get their redirect-handling sorted out - We hope.
Jim
>>Eventually, the big search providers may get their redirect-handling sorted out - We hope.<<
AMEN
Yahoo is a different country/market place to Google, so you have to adapt to their rules and their 'currency', if you want their traffic. This takes effort and inconvenience, but is the reality of the market place. The important part is that you stay within the rules for both.
If yahoo has chosen to ban these sites, then that is their decision. But it is perfectly reasonable for you to set up a new site for them. If a company sets up an operation in a foreign country, they adapt their presentation accordingly. It takes time, effort and expense but that is the cost of success. There is no rule to say you cannot have a site designed to do well in Yahoo and another to do well in Google. However, they need to be kept seperate and you must not attempt to spam either. If Google chooses to list all your sites then that is their choice and perhaps their problem, not yours. You may be getting an unfair advantage from the pr flow from your other sites and if you want to be sqeeky clean, then put 'no follow' in the metas on these old sites. Do this, sleep well and don't worry. Every day in the Google index is a free bonus for your company, your life will not be ruined if it goes wrong, you will find a way to recover. You are not responsible for the content of their index, they set themselves up for being the number 1 search engine and they cannot expect us to limit our exposure on other engines just to suit them. To be fair, they don't suggest you should. Give them a site which follows their rules and you will be listed. If its a good site, you will be ranked well. If they rank your other sites, its a bonus.
" I suspect they will soon change policy to penalize the use of perceived doorway pages. "
That is only going to happen if you link from your main site back to the original sites. No one could be sure that these original sites belong to you or are connected in any way to your main site, for instance, they could be a competiitor trying to black list you, this is why google takes the view that no other site can force a penalty on another site. So, if you don't link back, you are clear of any potential penalty. Google is in fact very fair and has a remarkable ability, considering the pressure they are under, to understand all these issues. Don't forget, they still list you and I can see no reason why they shouldn't. Yahoo is taking the unreasonable action, but maybe this is also why they are not the number 1 search engine. I can understand your fear that Google may become more aggressive in identifying two sites run by the same company. However, they will always choose one and drop the others. I don't believe they will ever ban a 'company' from their index for having two sites, they will take the one they believe to be the most relevant. There are lots of examples of them doing this. For instance, a site with both a .com version and a .co.uk on the same ip and cross linked. They will take the site that relates to the location of the ip address, not ban them both.
The big issue here is that if you run two sites for the same product, aimed at different market places, are you a spammer?
Untill Google, Yahoo, and all the others play by exactly the same rules, webmasters are sometimes forced to have seperate sites for different engines. Your situation is a perfect example of this. The ideal is that one site is percieved to be the best by both engines. If this is not the case, then you have to decide on your best business strategy.... forget about Yahoo? forget about Google? or try and adapt your business to perform well in both? If the answer is to have two sites, then so be it. You will be responding to the reality of the situation in a competitive way. Maybe people will accuse you of spamming, but if you adhere to googles terms and conditions and also Yahoos, then you are not spamming. If Google lists both sites, then that is their problem, especially if you only submitted one to them. They cannot expect to dictate how we run our business's, all they can do is set out their own rules, and you will have a site for them that accommodates those rules. They can ask no more of you.
Maximising your potential on Yahoo and also Google is not a sin, it is good business sense. If google bans sites that do this, they are banning companies with good business sense, and that would make a poor index. IMHO they are not going to do that.
Reply: The original post is about concern that Google search will follow Y! in penalising domains using perceived doorway pages, even when they are an innocent legacy, not a deliberate attempt to spam.
Yes, I've certainly asked Dmoz to change all the urls of the legacy sites; politely, using their online forms, and repeatedly. I've contacted them at least four times over the last year, with no response whatsoever, patiently waiting three months in between. If you are dmoz hutcheson, you'll know about the pedestrian pace of dmoz well.
grandpa wrote: "What about using a meta redirect?"
Reply: Wouldn't dream of using those GP, thats' what baby spammers do. The legacy sites have blank white pages up with a Site Moved notice, and a static link to our main domain.
jdMorgan wrote: "Get your backlinks updated to point to the new domain, that's all I can think of that won't backfire right now."
Reply: All the backlinks have been static links (not meta refreshes) pointing to the relevant page on our main domain for years and months (hence the inadvertantly high PR). My original post is about concern that Google will begin punishing our domain, like Y! has. So I want to change it beforehand.
Reply: MHes: Excellent reply: I salute you!
["I suspect they [Google] will soon change policy to penalize the use of perceived doorway pages."
That is only going to happen if you link from your main site back to the original sites. No one could be sure that these original sites belong to you or are connected in any way to your main site, for instance, they could be a competiitor trying to black list you, this is why google takes the view that no other site can force a penalty on another site. So, if you don't link back, you are clear of any potential penalty.]
Reply: We've never linked back from our main domain to the old freesites, all they contain are blank pages with site moved notices, and a static link. But I'm not willing to leave the penalty possibility in Google's wobbly-lap. I'd rather take the initiative out of their hands, even at the expense of PR and traffic.
Thank you for this key clause in your reply:
"... if you want to be sqeeky clean, then put 'no follow' in the metas on these old sites."
That's what I'll do, never thought of it! Surely G wouldn't penalize the main domain after doing that.
After including the 'no follow meta', I'll ask Y! to reconsider their penalty on our main domain too, though I don't foresee Y! becoming a serious SE competitor to G, so I'm not so concerned aboutY!.
Ta!
I'll wait a month, and then see what Y! say about relisiting the main domain.
Ta!
