Leaving the site up on 2 hosts while Google updates DNS Cache

Can it be seen as duplicate content ?

[diddlydazz]

The DNS has propagated and points to new host.

Google is still pulling pages from the old host so I have left them there.

Will Google think it is duplicate content when it refreshes it's DNS cache ?

When should I take them off the old host ?

Any experiences / opinions appreciated

thanks in advance

Dazz

[arefsum]

>> The DNS has propagated and points to new host.

By definition if it has propagated, then google or any other host on the net should use the new address. This will usually take some time tho.

I do not know if google uses an internal ip based system which would skew the DNS system, but I do not thinks so. I believe google will find the old as well well as the new because of stale dns references.

In the long run it shouldn't make any difference, since google and the other search engines serves you with dns based names (urls) and those names (urls) are the ones that are used by the browser to find your server.

As for what is smart or not when it comes to leave the old one in place, I am not qualified to answer that.

Alf

[diddlydazz]

I think you misunderstood my question.

I am aware (AFAICB) how the Google DNS cache works, it does keep an internal record of IPs so it doesnt have to do a DNS lookup everytime it crawls.

I was more concerned about the DUP content part :)

Dazz

[arefsum]

Then I'm able to give you an answer :), personal guess is that google would end up with "the same reference" to two different hosts, which is probably not a good thing.

Alf

[Alby]

This is a very interesting question that I would also love to have the answer to. I have a brand new top-of-the-line dedicated server sitting and waiting for my DNS transfer, but I haven't dared to do the change yet in fear of losing my top rankings in Google and $40k in sales per month. :( Anyone that really knows the answer to this, (Googleguy?), your time would be greatly appreciated.

[arefsum]

What you can do is to transfer the whole server, make sure it works, change ip address of the new server to the address of the old server. Depending on what os you are running, that should not take a lot of time (max a few minutes), problem solved.

Alf

[richlowe]

change ip address of the new server to the address of the old server.

This would not work if you were changing ISP's. Their routers would not understand how to route to your new server.

Richard Lowe

[Alby]

I have suggested that but the host won't do it, even if I pay good money. :( The old server is shared with a number of other web sites and he doesn't want the hassle.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[richlowe]

The old host is shared with a number of other web sites and he doesn't want the hassle.

I can understand that ... if the old box is shared then probably several dozen to several hundred users would have to modify their sites for the new IP. It would be a great hassle to all of them.

RIchard Lowe

[WebGuerrilla]

This won't be duplicate content issue. If Google has lagged about updating their DNS cache, (which happens quite often) and are pulling pages from the old IP, the are still only collecting one copy of each page based on the URL.

Humans may be viewing example.com/about.htnml from your new IP and Google may still be crawling example.com/about.html but it is still the exact same page from the exact same URL.

You only get into potential duplicate content problems when the page is being crawled from two different domains.

Leaving the site at the old domain until you are sure all Googlebots are crawling the new location was the right thing to do.

[diddlydazz]

WebGuerrilla,

Thanks - Thanks - Thanks

I thought so but needed someone to tell me so ;)

Thanks again

Dazz

[Alby]

So to clarify this even further for someone who really has not understood this, but heard many horror stories. As long as I leave the duplicate web site up and running on the old server for several months to make sure googlebot has got it, there is no risk of dropping my rankings due to a DNS problem? If this is correct than I am very grateful to you for clarifying this issue.

[przero2]

In my experience, leaving the content at the old and new IP has not resulted in any duplicate issues with Google. The bot would crawl either from old IP or the new IP depending on what IP it has for the domain in its DNS lookup DB. So, in effect, it should know of one copy and should result in no duplicate issues.

That said, I have a disaster of experience moving a domain from a shared IP to dedicated IP without changing the physical server and the name servers. The bot kept going to the old IP where the content was not accessible - it rather indexed the server's default "Welcome to cobalt raq page" for a month and removed all the pages from the domain in the 2nd month ... We will know soon what will happen in the 3rd month with the next update!.

[ciml]

Alby, having the same content returned by different IPs for the same "Host: " header (domain) is not a problem.

Having the same content returned by requests to different domains (i.e. with different "Host: " headers) is a major problem.

[pspyr]

Hi There
Hope someone can offer some words of wisdom.
I recently bought a domain which appears to of had a past user...
Google had been cashing the site at the old dns (someone elses site) for the last 3 months. I have now idea who they are... only that they are now running some dodgy outfit out of .tw (taiwan i believe).
I've been aware that this is the case now for about a month, and figured that goodle would realise what is happening.. but it has not.
Is there a way of getting google to go to the right DNS server on its next crawl?
thanks
ss