SEO Tycoon

**MartCHawk** · 02-17-2011, 08:45 AM

We recently moved our domain to BigCommerce. Previously, the website was doing well SEO wise, but things unfortunately took a nosedive after about a month.

When you sign-up with BigCommerce, they assign you a TEMPORARY URL that mirrors your actual domain (they call it a TEMP URL, even though there is nothing temporary about it).

Case in point, we have found that some pages from the TEMPORARY SITE have been indexed, and we suspect our rankings have lowered as a result of duplicate content.

Would Google really penalize us for one mirror site? Unfortunately, we have no control over that TEMP URL, according to BigCommerce. When asking them if they can 301 direct it to our domain, or shut it down, they say that is not an option. Blocking the TEMP URL via robots.txt is not an option since the two sites are mirrored.

I'm hoping that someone might have an alternative idea on what I can do to get the TEMP URLs removed from Google's index (if that is even possible).

Thank you.

**dWhite** · 02-17-2011, 08:51 AM

Google does not penalize for duplicate content.

**MartCHawk** · 02-17-2011, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dWhite

Google does not penalize for duplicate content.

Even if they don't "penalize," is it logical to assume that because our domain is mirrored with the BigCommerce TEMP URL, that Google has chosen to not index a lot of the pages on our domain as a result?

If that is the case, having this stupid mirrored site is a problem and I wish there was a way to remove it, without having to leave BigCommerce.

**chrishirst** · 02-17-2011, 11:06 AM

You moved your pages to new URLs! Why are you surprised at them disappearing from SEs??

**MartCHawk** · 02-17-2011, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

You moved your pages to new URLs! Why are you surprised at them disappearing from SEs??

Because we had setup 301 directs point OLD domain URLs to the new ones.

For a few weeks, the new site was ranking good until the sudden drop two weeks ago.

**chrishirst** · 02-17-2011, 11:26 AM

Quote:

For a few weeks, the new site was ranking good

Well it is a new site and that does happen normally.

301 redirects are not instant for SEs, it may take three to six months for the redirects to affect the SE index, possibly even longer

**MartCHawk** · 02-17-2011, 11:31 AM

That makes sense.

**mgandy** · 02-17-2011, 02:49 PM

As stated I don't believe the duplicate content is the issue. To answer your question better I would need to know if the site was hosted as an ecommerce store before the move to BigCommerce. I think has to do more with moving the site and having different link structure and url endings then you previously had on your other site. You can always use google webmaster tool and see if it recognizes the mirrored site as a part of your own. As tip most of these ecommerce hosting sites do make copies and mirror your site. This how they are able to allow for online editors and make changes within the host without having to ftp the information.