No this is not another post about the PR hell that was cast upon the web recently.
Nor does Pwnage indicate some type of adult site, check out the definition of pwnage
So what is this post all about? Its about a combination of mistakes that was done recently by myself and a host that lead to the complete de-indexing of a site, total loss of rankings and a loss of around 20k a month in business.
No I will not show the site, but I will explain the very simple thing that happened.
We all know about duplicate content right?
In small batches its not so much of an issue, or if you re-write it in someway its also usually not a problem but when you have entire exact replica’s of a site, then you are asking for major trouble.
Recently the domain in question was moved over from one host to another host, now at the time I forgot that I had some add-on domains setup on the site that were using a 301 re-direct back to the main site, so as to not cause any issues.
Now when you park a domain into another cpanel account, it will normally just “map” the domain over the top of the other domain. Meaning if you visit the parked domain, you will still have the same url address as the parked domain, but it will display the content from the main domain. This essentially is complete duplication of your main site if Google were to index it.
The reason for this is that it returns a 200 ok server header. Which means as far as any Search Engine is concerned its open slather for indexing.
Checkout Server Header Checker to see what your sites are returning.
A 200 ok header should look like this.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:25:31 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.37 (Unix) mod_auth_passthrough/ 1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/ 5.0.2.2635.SR1.2 mod_ssl/2.8.28 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP -CGI/0.1b X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.7 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html
Okay so how is this bad then?
Well when we moved the domain the host completed the move for us and set it all up, but instead of replicating the current structure, they just re-added it as a new parked domain, thereby returning a 200 OK for multiple domains displaying the exact same content.
The Result.
Within 3 days of indexing the domain, the previously ranked domain (first place for all industry keywords) was completely de-indexed (main index was not even indexed) and as a result total loss of rankings.
 Finding The Problem
Once I thought I knew what it was, finding out was quite easy. We grabbed some unique content from the page and did a Google quotation search for that text. I actually expected to find some trouble maker duplicating my site. By doing this search you will find all indexed pages that use this unique phrase that should only be found on your site.
And you can usually find the problem that way.
What I found shocked me. It was my own site that should have never been indexed. Here I am happy with our hosts move over, when I now find my site is de-indexed, total rank loss for duplicate content because this other useless domain was indexed.
After a little more checking of cache dates etc we confirmed this was the problem and went about fixing it. Crossing our fingers that we would pop back up in the results just as quickly as we went.
The SolutionÂ
Don’t ever park a domain without doing a proper 301 re-direct on it, people say you can do a 302 re-direct, but I prefer to play it safe and use a 301.  Again you can use the server header checker above to check and make sure your site is returning the correct server header codes.
So how can you do a 301 re-direct?
I could explain it here but it would be re-inventing the wheel, so let me just point you to a resource
For us we just used a php 301 redirect placed in the root of the main domain, effectively redirecting the entire domain to our other domain.
It took all up only 4 days after this was implemented for the said site to be completely re-indexed, and about another 2 days for rankings to come back. There is no loss whatsoever to rankings and everything is as it should be.
Lesson here is to always check parked domains when you move structure around.
Till Next Time
Marc
Popularity: 47% [?]
From ‘losing’ Rob’s site to ‘killing’ your own site… What’s next, mate? Ha ha!
Glad you were able to recover from it so quickly.
Dewald
lol
So true, I guess they say you learn from your mistakes. All I have to do is workout which mistakes to make so I can learn faster
All in a days work and a good experience to go through overall.
I still cop it over Robs site
Marc
Ouch Marc!
It amazes me how many of these technical “gotchas” there are. I got caught by some myself… first I managed to ban Googlebot from the site when trying to keep out harvesting bots and then my programmers redesigned the site architecture and inadvertently created tons of duplicate pages. :-/
The site has been suppressed in Google and I lost almost all traffic. Oh well, it’ll come back, eventually.
Oh snap
Ha banning Googlebot thats a new one.
oh Neil if you want a hand bringing that site back, there are things you can do to correct most of that and it shouldn’t be too hard at all. yes a mission but worth it IMHO.
Just contact either Dan or me (I think you have my direct contact)
Cheers
Marc
Isn’t this a good sign to come up with alternative methods of driving traffic to your site?
Myspace and Facebook are prime examples of companies that are dependent of Google search engines. Even YouTube was independent of it and then they were bought out by Google.
Perhaps yes, this mistake is more something we did or did not do when moving hosts.
The problem is though, no matter how you look at it Google is still King when it comes to natural traffic and the rate at which it converts.
Myspace & Facebook can be an alternative source but usually the traffic you gain from them will not be anywhere near as high a conversion rate as will a natural search through the Search Engines.
Lets face it SE’s are a critical part of doing business online.
The other most critical part (and an alternative traffic method) is building good relationships with other experts in your field and tying together JV opportunities and service tie ins.
Regards
Marc