301 redirect

Are both sites supposed to be indexed?

[namniboose]

A 301 redirect at the server is being used to redirect visitors from a secondary domain to the primary url and I was surprised to see that Google has indexed both.

Is this supposed to happen?

The site does show in the cache of the redirected domain (and the redirected domain IS freshly indexed with just the url and no title or description) so I want to know for sure: does Google knows this isn't 2 sites with duplicate content?

Thanks!

[jdMorgan]

namniboose,

No, it's not supposed to happen, but a lot depends on timing. We're in the middle of this second "different" Google update, and things are not settled. And the main part of Google's index is several months old, too - until the current update rolls out.

In the meantime, if Google has found links to the secondary domain, it may not have had time to figure out that they now should be credited to the primary domain instead.

So it all depends on WHEN that 301 redirect was installed, and whether the secondary domain has been deep-crawled since then.

Another thing... Be sure to check both domains with the Server Headers checker [webmasterworld.com], and make sure you get 301-Moved Permanently from the secondary domain and 200-OK from the primary domain.

HTH,
Jim

[namniboose]

Hi Jim,

The redirect was installed recently but I believe that the secondary domain has been deep-crawled since then.

Google certainly may have found links to the secondary domain, however as they have only been moved recently to the other domain.

Thanks - that is a useful tool. Hopefully the secondary domain will clear from the index next update.

[namniboose]

The same thing was done with another site, brand new and with no external links. The redirected domain got picked up by Google instead of the primary domain.

I have since set up links to the primary domain, so is Google likely to drop the redirected domain in favor of the domain with links next update?