Punished by Google Already? - it's only been one week

my mistake - leaving three domains in same home directory

[Jakes Redding]

Hello,

Just got my first site up live last week and think I really goofed. My hosting company offered three free domains in their hosting package, so I of course got two in addition to my real domain (for possible future use). Left them all in the same home directory on the server when I uploaded the site. When Google crawled for the first time, it associated all my content pages with the non-relevant (future) domains, not my real domain. So when searching for my site or keywords, Google serves up pages using the non-relevant urls. After noticing this, put the domains in separate directories (won’t make that mistake again). Remaining problems are that Google now links to error (404) pages, and there are still no search results to my real domain. Did they ban my real domain already for duplicate content? Will this clear up over time, and if so, how long might it take? Also, should I do anything about the error pages? I really don’t have any content created for them as they are meant for future products lines (widgets) which have yet to be developed.

[BigDave]

Give it time, it will clear up. Don't even worry about your ranking for at least 3 months.

[Jakes Redding]

Wow, that long? I'll have to develop a new attribute: patience. But normally, how often does Google crawl a site? Is it possible to clear up the next time they crawl?

[idolw]

it usually crawls everyday. crawl results seem to be delayed.
best advice here is: forget about google for a while. do all the things you did not have time for earlier and make your site better.
good luck!

[Quadrille]

Be sure to get a selection of incoming links to your site; that will help Google to crawl effectively, and may expedite the corrections.

Do also be sure your site navigation is good, and you do have useful, user friendly 404s.

Consider ading a Google sitemap - but if you do, you'll need to update it when you add new content.

Keep growing the site, and as stated above, don't worry about Google for a few months.

I'm sure you've already done most of that!

[edited by: Quadrille at 12:01 pm (utc) on Feb. 23, 2007]

[g1smd]

On the domain you DO want to use, make sure that non-www redirects to www as that is another form of duplicate content that can cause problems if you forget to put in the redirect.