Google and Duplicate Content

[cspelts]

Does anyone have any idea how long it takes for Google to recognize that a site that used to have duplicate content is now unique?

I had a site up in two places for the past two years – all the navigation on the old site pointed to the new site, but I didn’t strip out the actual content on the old site until recently. It was a hobby site, so not a huge priority – and at first it worked really well. All the incoming links still worked and I got all that traffic on my new site.

But over time Google figured out it was duplicate content and dropped the new site. And since Google is ignoring my newer site, none of my incoming links are counting, and the old site has very few incoming links at this point.

Well, suddenly there are big things on the horizon for this site – so I need to fix all this. Last week I finally took the time to strip the old site – now there is a 301 redirect on all the ASP pages, and the HTML pages have one single link to the new site.

I also changed some of the content on the new site – duplicate content is no longer an issue. But I’ve read in the past that once Google tags a site as a duplicate, it can take a while for that to change. Is this true?

[SEOforGoogle]

Have you contacted Google? That would be my first step. Simply explain to them as you did in this post, and you should be back in their graces in a month or so.

Concerning the duplicate content penalty overall, they will always consider the older site as having the "original" content, so that's why it's critical to establish and keep all of your domain names for historic timelines.

[cspelts]

Really? I should contact Google? That would never have occurred to me - I'll try it now!

Thanks for the advice!

[cspelts]

Here’s an update - I contacted Google and I haven’t heard back, but yesterday the old site dropped out of Google entirely, and the new site is now on page 18 for my primary search term.

That sounds like I went backwards since the old site used to be page one, position four for that same keyword – and I guess I did go backwards! But I feel like it’s an investment in the future because the new site has more backlinks, including a listing in DMOZ, and it has fresher content – so hopefully the site will get back to the top, and maybe even the number one position!

Thank you SEOforGoogle for the advice to contact Google. I thought I had to just wait around for Google to figure it out – I’m glad I was able to be proactive and get the process started!

[cspelts]

I just signed up for Google AdWords - I figured I need to be in Google, even if I have to pay for it for a while.

Half an hour later my new site is suddenly showing up in the same spot the old site used to for my main keyword - fourth position on the first page.

I'm just glad to be back in Google!

[Katt]

I believe one of my sites just got hit for duplicate content, but the rankings have been fluctuating quite a bit lately so I'm not 100% sure. The thing is, my company and another company sell the same product line, and we share information, pictures, etc. with each other.

Our websites are not identical, but a few pages are. We're now both making changes to get rid of duplicate content, but what to do next? And how can I be sure that it was definitely a duplicate content penalty that caused the sudden plunge in rank? I highly doubt Google would tell me. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I read somewhere about adding &filter=0 to the end of a Google query but it didn't seem to work.

[28overpar]

cspelts wrote:

I just signed up for Google AdWords - I figured I need to be in Google, even if I have to pay for it for a while.

Half an hour later my new site is suddenly showing up in the same spot the old site used to for my main keyword - fourth position on the first page.

Surely this had to be a coincidence?

Otherwise anyone could pay for instant inclusion for a single ad/keyword?

Would certainly end the search for methods of digging out of the "Sandbox"?