Plagiarized Site Effecting Google Rankings
-
Can someone provides insights on a de-indexing example? I have gone through the depths of Google lack of support and requesting duplicate content flags, so no avail.
Here's the scenario:
Client had a competing SEO provider try to earn his business. In doing so, he copied word for word our blog that we have been producing content on over the last 5 years. He also integrated Google reviews in the structured data on this new URL. Well, fast forward 1-2 months later, our rankings started to drop. We found this 100% plagiarized site is taking away from our keyword rankings on GMB, and is no and Google search, and our site GMB is now only displaying on a branded name search as well as our search traffic has dropped. I have identified the plagiarized, duplicated content, being tied to our GMB as well, as the source of the problem.
Well, I finally obtain ed control of the plagarized domain and shut down the hosted, and forwarded the URL to our URL. Well, Google still has the HTTS version of the site indexed. And it is in my professional opinion, that since the site is still indexed and is associated with the physician GMB that was ranking for our target keyword and no longer does, that this is the barrier to ranking again. Since its the HTTPS version, it is not forwarded to our domain. Its a 504 error but is still ranking in the google index. The hosting and SSL was canceled circa December 10th. I have been waiting for Google to de-index this site, therefore allowing our primary site to climb the rankings and GMB rankings once again. But it has been 6 weeks and Google is still indexing this spam site. I am incredibly frustrated with google support (as a google partner) and disappointed that this spam site is still indexed.
Again, my conclusion that when this SPAM site is de-indexed, we will return back to #1. But when? and at this point, ever?
Highlighted below is the spam site. Any suggestions?
-
What an aggravating mess to have to clean up!
You're going to need to give Google stronger and less ambiguous directions for what to do with the offending domain. Right now, with the HTTPS version not redirecting properly, G is getting contradictory signals that will cause it to leave the HTTPS version in the index and prolong your issues.
The first step is to add an SSL certificate for the spam domain to the client's primary domain. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it is required procedure in order for the redirect of the HTTPS version of the spam domain to work.
When a browser (or the Google crawler) tries to follow that HTTP redirect, the very first thing it must do is negotiate the connection. Because it's an HTTPS URL, that connection is going to fail because there is no SSL certificate present. Which means Googlebot can never get to the point where it can even see the 301 redirect. So Google thinks the spam domain is still active and leaves it in the index.
So step one is to get an SSL certificate for the www and non-www versions of the spam domain installed on the primary domain so the redirect will work.
The next step is to get the spam domain verified in its own Google Seach Console so that you can give Google direct instructions regarding what you want it to do with that domain.
Since you've deleted the spam domain's hosting, you'll need to Verify the spam domain in Google Search Console by using the DNS verification method where you add a TXT record to the spam domain's DNS records.
Once you have the spam domain verified and the HTTPS redirect is working properly, you can use the Change of Address tool in Search Console to point the spam domain to the primary domain. (The CoA tool must see a working 301 redirect in order to process the change.)
Note! At this point, I would use the Change of Address rather than the Remove URL tool in order to push any relevance signals of the spam domain to the primary instead of just dropping them altogether.
The additional benefit of the Change of Address is that the old spam domain will almost immediately drop out of the SERPs.
As a final step, it would be beneficial to get the individual spam URLs redirecting to their equivalents on the primary site. If the spam site used exactly the same URL structure, your domain redirect will take care of this. But otherwise, it would be beneficial to harvest as many of the spam URLs as possible and add 301 redirects for them into the htaccess file of the primary site. Again, we're trying to give Googlebot as many unambiguous signals as possible about what to do with the authority of those spam URLs.
Does that all make sense?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it worth buying an entry on Wikipedia-type sites?
Recently I've come across a few websites offering (for a fee) to research, write and publish an entry on the likes of Wikipedia, Citizendium or Wikitia - I thought this might be helpful when it comes to marketing and link building for a brand or individual. Purchasing guest blog posts is a standard way to obtain a high domain authority in-context backlink, but I wondered if purchasing an entry on one of these human edited encyclopedias would be as effective, better or not worth the money? It costs quite a bit more than guest posting and blog outreach, but on the other hand they are authoritative websites that also include backlinks. Any thoughts would be most welcome.
SEO Tactics | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Ok to have multiple domains w/ seperate websites rank for similar keywords?
Is it Ok to have multiple domains (separate website different content) rank for similar keywords? Is it 'OK' to have multiple domains in the following instance? Does Google actively discourage multiple (but completely different sites) domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same and or similar keywords if the content is slightly different? This is where the 'main site' has the details, and you can purchase product, and the second site is a blog site only. We are creating a separate content blogsite; which would be on a second domain that will be related to one portion of content on main site. They would be linking back and forth, or maybe the blog site would just link over to the main site so they can purchase said product. This would be a similar scenario to give you an idea of how it would be structured: MAIN SITE: describes a few products, and you can purchase from this site SECOND SITE, different domain: a blog site that contains personal experiences
SEO Tactics | | fourwhitesocks
with one of the products. BOTH sites will be linked back and forth....or as mentioned maybe the blog site could just link over to the 'main site' Logo would be a modified version of the main logo and look and feel of the sight would be similar but not exactly the same. MORE INFO: the main site has existed for way over 10 years, starting to gain some traction in an extremely competitive market, but does not rank super high, is gaining traction due to improvements in speed, content, onpage SEO, etc... So in addition to my main question of is this 'ok' to have this second domain, also will it hurt the rankings or negatively affect the 'main' site, will we have duplicate content issues? ** If this is not the right place to ask this then where should I be asking?
Thank you!0 -
Track SEO performance for specific sub-directories
How can i track performance metrics for a group of subdirectories.
SEO Tactics | | Miradoro
I.e
domain.com/de/en_uk
domain.com/de/de_de
domain.com/at/en_uk
domain.com/at/de_de0 -
Duplicate content, although page has "noindex"
Hello, I had an issue with some pages being listed as duplicate content in my weekly Moz report. I've since discussed it with my web dev team and we decided to stop the pages from being crawled. The web dev team added this coding to the pages <meta name='robots' content='max-image-preview:large, noindex dofollow' />, but the Moz report is still reporting the pages as duplicate content. Note from the developer "So as far as I can see we've added robots to prevent the issue but maybe there is some subtle change that's needed here. You could check in Google Search Console to see how its seeing this content or you could ask Moz why they are still reporting this and see if we've missed something?" Any help much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | rj_dale0 -
How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?
I have a large site with over 6000 pages indexed but only 600 actual pages and need to clean up with 301 redirects. Haven't had this need since Google stopped displaying the url's in the results.
SEO Tactics | | aplusnetsolutions0 -
Google Search Console - Excluded Pages and Multiple Properties
I have used Moz to identify keywords that are ideal for my website and then I optimized different pages for those keywords, but unfortunately rankings for some of the pages have declined. Since I am working with an ecommerce site, I read that having a lot of Excluded pages on the Google Search Console was to be expected so I initially ignored them. However, some of the pages I was trying to optimize are listed there, especially under the 'Crawled - currently not indexed' and the 'Discovered - currently not indexed' sections. I have read this page (link: https://moz.com/blog/crawled-currently-not-indexed-coverage-status ) and plan on focusing on Steps 5 & 7, but wanted to ask if anyone else has had experience with these issues. Also, does anyone know if having multiple properties (https vs http, www vs no www) can negatively affect a site? For example, could a sitemap from one property overwrite another? Would removing one property from the Console have any negative impact on the site? I plan on asking these questions on a Google forum, but I wanted to add it to this post in case anyone here had any insights. Thank you very much for your time,
SEO Tactics | | ForestGT
Forest0 -
block primary . xxx domain with disavow tool
Hi friends I discovered spam url attack on top sites with good google positions for specific keyword. Can I block primary domain like .xxx with disavow tool? There is hundreds of different domains but primary domain is always the same. for example like this domain:xxx? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netcomsia0 -
spam score
I start blogging a few months ago and start SEO by watching some tutorials and start making backlinks now I realize that I made backlinks on some spammy site which increase my spam score from 1 to 7 now I remove my links from that spammy site but my spam score is still 7.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | lorosing
can someone assist me to decrease my spam score site URL
https://lbctracking.net1