Duplicate domain name....

[trillianjedi]

I think I realised why I have so many googlebots deepcrawling my site.

I still had the test domain linked to the same site.

So I had www.my-actual-domain.com *and* h*ttp://the-testing-domain.com.

Unfortunately, there were two major links of the old domain on a couple of pages, which would then send spiders around the entirety of the site in the old name.

All inbound links (quite a few now) are to the new domain.

I've now deleted the old domain links and google is still deep-crawling.

Do you think I've gotten away with that, or am I in trouble and at risk of being banned?

Thanks,

A slightly panicked TJ.......

[mack]

I think you should use redirections within your htaccess file for the test domain. That will instruct Googlebot (and others) that your content has moved.

Duplicate content issues is somethiong we all have to be very wary about.

[trillianjedi]

Thanks Mack, I'll actually delete the test domain, it's not required anymore.

How seriously does google take this though? I've just wasted a fair bit of googlebot's time. But it was completely inadvertant.

Anything I can do?

TJ

[mack]

if the bot has indexed your site through both domains I would leave both in place until the next update. You might find that your test domain will out rank your propper domain. Use perminant redirects in your htaccess file to make sure that your test domain does not get indexed next time. Then after your test domain has been removed from the index you can remove the domain. If you remove the domain now you run the risk of sending your users to 404 pages when they try to access your site.

[trillianjedi]

Thanks Mack, I will do just that.

All of the inbound links are to the proper domain, so I hope that outranks the test domain (no inbound links except two ones in error from deep internal pages from the main site).

Both those internal links have been removed. May have just got there in time before googlebot got down that far. Time will tell......

Most stupid mistake I've ever made, but I can be sure that it won't happen again!

All other webmasters - learn from my mistake and don't make it yourself! Life's too short already!

TJ

[trillianjedi]

Out of interest, we have been extensively freshbotted, and the main site is listed in google, the duplicate isn't. The test domain links would actually have been in there from day 1.

When I click on "similar pages" from a google search for us, it comes up with nothing.

If I search also in google for "the-test-domain.com" in google, it also comes up with nothing.

I'm hoping that's a good sign that the test domain has simply been dropped.

TJ

[trillianjedi]

By the way, I have a second domain name that I also wouldn't mind using for this same website.

It is possible to do that with a permanent 301 redirect?

TJ

[mack]

IF you use 301 redirects you can use multiple domain names, Only one of them will be shows in the serps though. 301's are used quite regularly for changing domain names. Just point all your 301's to the correct address that you want search engines to index. The 301 basicaly tells the robot, the content on this domain is located on another, index the other and leave this one alone.

Hope this helps.

<added>

What you also need to think about is a 301 will not only redirect se spiders it will also redirect surfers, This can be usefull if you have a domain that is likely to attract type in visits. They type in the easy name and get sent direct to your site. Sometimes this can be off putting to the user though, they may think they are on the wrong site.

[trillianjedi]

Thanks Mack,

This second domain is a possible type-in. I bought it to stop the opposition getting it, but figure if I can safelessly and seamlessly refirect to my site in a spider/user friendly fashion then I may as well.

TJ