Question about removing URL from Google index via Webmasters Tools

[shawn26nyc]

Hello,

I have a situation. My main site is hosted on [mywebhost], which uses cPanel. I moved a second site to [mywebhost] as an add-on domain temporarily (to perform some tests). cPanel puts the content of the add-on site in a sub-folder of public_html by default.

The developer did not change the location of add-on site content to a sibling of public_html (a great practice). I realized this 3 days after my developer moved (a copy of) the second site to [mywebhost], so I deleted the add-on domain and the sub-folder containing all the files right away. However Google had already indexed the second site as a sub-domain of my main site during that time.

So far I have not noticed any damage to SEO ranking of my main site and it's been 10 days. But when I Google site:mainsite.com, I still see pages from the second site indexed as both secondsite.mainsite.com and mainsite.com/secondsite.com

It's important to note that I received an email from Webmasters Tools about increased 404 errors 2 days after deleting the add-on domain and its sub-folder. I just checked Google WMT account again and its still shows dozens of 404 errors related to pages of the second site.

I am thinking about using the URL Removal tool in Webmasters Tools to have the pages from the second site unindexed. I am not inclined to 301 redirect secondsite.mainsite.com to secondsite.com as both sites are completely unrelated.

I want to make sure that these 404 errors go away and my main-site does not suffer any damage in Google rankings due to duplicate content SEO penalty.

I would appreciate if anyone can help. Thanks!

[edited by: brotherhood_of_LAN at 5:37 am (utc) on Nov 26, 2014]
[edit reason] Removed [mywebhost] name to avoid specifics, as per respect of the forum ToS. Thanks. [/edit]

[goodroi]

Why are you concerned about duplicate content when you moved your second site to the addon? Isn't your second site unique content from the main site?

[netmeg]

Don't worry about the 404's, Google expects 404's if something isn't there anymore.

That said, there's no reason you can't remove the second site from GWT. You don't really *need* to, but if it bugs you to have it sitting out there generating 404s (as it would me) you can remove it. I have to do this type of thing all the time when someone's development system accidentally (!) gets indexed.

It won't help you, but it won't hurt you.

[lucy24]

If you're concerned about server load, adding an explicit 410 will make the googlebot go away faster. (It doesn't seem to affect other search engines.) That applies specifically to crawling as opposed to indexing.

You may want to check a few random searches to make sure Correct Old Hostname comes before Incorrect New Hostname in SERPs. Otherwise you risk humans clicking on a search result and landing on a 404, which really would be calamitous.

[shawn26nyc]

netmeg and lucy24 - Thanks for your great replies! Do you know how I can make my WorrdPress site return 410 error for pages like www.mainsite.com/secondsite.com/page-1 ?

netmeg - I am going to follow your advice about URL removal via GWT as my situation is similar to what you've encountered with dev sites getting indexed.

goodroi - I was concerned because www.mainsite.com/secondsite.com and secondsite.com have essentially the same content (although it was only for 3 days).