Moving Content in Case of Penalty/Banning

kinglouie

Guys... What do you recommend for a site that maybe will be penalized or banned?

I want to invest some money in quality content for my website... but I want to be sure that I'll not lose my investment. I was thinking to have the site created with Wordpress and move the content with Wordpress Duplicator to another domain in case of a Google penalty.

And from there I can try another link strategy and so on. So basically the content will remain the same... maybe the wordpress theme will change in case of moving it to a new domain.

Any experiences or thoughts will be much appreciated as always.

Thanks.

ron

I do exactly what you just said, and I use Duplicator too - huge fan of Duplicator.

The only other thing you need to do to button things up is when you move the site, I like to throw up article spins on the old pages - and still build some links to it. In other words, let the bots come back and reindex the new content. Then the potential for the duplicate content issue is completely removed from the table.

About 10 days later, check Google cache to see that it has your 'new' content indexed. You can use the site operator in Google search to find your website, i.e., site:httx://website.com  in google search. It pulls up all pages. Then click on the little cache thingies next to each page to see what is in the google cache. If all the pages have the new content, you can basically kill that old domain, or just leave it.    

kinglouie

Exactly what I wanted to hear.

But I was thinking to kill the old domain directly after the content is transferred.

Are there any advantages if I'll throw some spun articles on the old domain?

ron

It's exactly for the reasons I stated. I would rather Google *know* there is different content on the old domain, and re-index that new content, so there is not even the remote possibility of there possible being duplicate content in the Google *cache*.

You need to understand the distinction I am making, so I am going to say it a different way. Google crawls websites and take "snapshots" of the content on those webpages. This is what it keeps in its index - its cache - until the next time the bots take new snapshots. The cache is updated roughly every 7-10 days.

Let's say you switch the content, and immediately take down the old domain. Google's last snapshot will have the *exact same content* as your new site - hence duplicate content.

You need to allow Google time to take new snapshots, and upload it to its cache. You want to see it with your own eyes. Then you know with *100% certainty* that the cache is updated, the index is updated, and there is *no duplicate content*.

There is another way to do this in Webmaster Tools, but then you are revealing to Google exactly what you are doing, so I strongly advise not doing that.

kinglouie

Thanks @ron. That's an awesome strategy you got right there. Thanks again for sharing it.

So first you'll change the content on the penalized/banned site and then, when the gibberish content it's cached you'll upload the quality (old) content on the new domain/host.

What if the penalized/banned domain and the new domain are on the same IP? I guess there's no worry here... since I'll use shared hosting for my sites that promote affiliate products.

I can relate to your way of thinking that's why your in my notebook in the "People Who Can I Trust" section!

ron

To be clear, you don't have to wait 7-10 days to make the move. I like to stick up the new content on the old site first, and start SER on that project - you know, gets the bots moving over there. Then take my sweet time to get the new site going with the old content. Usually no more than one day, sometimes later that same day.

I'm just trying to give an edge to the old site getting bots there asap - it makes me feel more comfortable knowing I am getting the thorn in my side handled first before I take time with my more 'valuable investment' - the new site.

I mentioned the 7-10 day thing so that you are clear about *not removing or killing the old site* until you know that the google cache is updated with the bogus content. At that point, it is updated in the index, and you can just take down the site. I hope all of this makes sense.

kinglouie

All make sense perfect.

What about the design... You keep it the same or change the theme?

ron

Usually keep it the same. If it worked before, then I don't want to change it. It's about conversion and making money. Don't fix it if it isn't broken. 

kinglouie

Thanks @ron

What about the IP? Move it to another shared hosting or keep it the same?

ron

I honestly don't believe it matters - at least I never had a problem so far.

kinglouie

Muchas gracias

spunko2010

Looks like @ron has already given you most of the answers, however just to go against the grain... I always make sure to change the server IP address, and always make sure to bulk-rename (in .php and .css etc) some of the main HTML elements. I only have anecdotal evidence to suggest this works, it might not, but it only takes 10 minutes so why not try it.

Also I make sure WHOIS is different, and if you use Analytics (my 2 cents: don't) make sure it's in a different account as the ID numbers are the same across your whole account and easy to track.

I also go for different DNS such as clouddns.net to the other slapped domain's DNS, just to be sure. They can just be vanity DNS so hide your real DNS... Again, probably not logged by Google but takes 5 mins to setup and is free.

All of these have the added benefit that if, like me, a competitor is an arsehole and tries to link your sites together and neg-SEO them, it makes it a little bit trickier. If you read the book 'In the Plex' then it says something along the lines of Google also review sites manually in some niches to make sure it's not being dominated by 1 person with loads of different seemingly-unconnected sites. So all of this is worth doing, if you're paranoid like me.

kinglouie

@spunko2010 - Thanks for your suggestions as well. I'll keep them in mind.

1. What main HTML elements are you referring to?
2. I always use WHOIS guard on all my domains and I rarely use a product from Google (except the search engine).
3. What if I just shutdown the website after the new content has been indexed and remove the DNS ? (I'm searching for "free dns server" and I see a lot of options... I guess that's a good thing as well)

Thanks.

namdas

If you shut down the DNS the page will remain cached but low ranked for some time - better to ensure the last cache of your site is empty / won't cause dupe content before pulling the plug

donchino

@ron For me the google cache update takes always forever... one site now i have been waiting over 2 months, and still one subpage is like from April in the cache.. no matter that there was panda and other content related algo updates.. google still showing some ancient results in serp.

For one site i was in a hurry with, i added GWT and manually told googlebot to delete the urls from serp, same way in bing and yahoo (manual delete in webmasters tools). It worked, one-two days and everything was gone, but that's quite some handjob and i'm not into it, also, it seems natural deindex is more.. natural

edit: maybe its because i didn't build any links to it, i threw in some 1000 words spun on homepage with some youtube videos, deleted all other pages, and added urls to indexer.. still it seems unreal that google visits my site, but doesn't do anything with missing pages for so long time

donchino

thinking more about it.. i think i should add some more content to those subpages still in serp, cause google would more likely index new content sooner than delete 404 not found page (to give people chance to fix their site if they are having issues and not wanting to get it deindexed)

namdas

Try putting the dead pages through one of the indexing services, it can speed things up a fair bit. If 404s are too slow then 403 errors are picked up quickly, as are 410 as they are less likely to be accidents.

sagarpatil

Why not just Remove URL's using GWT. It removes your pages from search results and cache. After that you can do anything with your content.

ron

If things are going very poorly, here is a trick that will have every google bot on the planet coming to your website:

Have a list of videos handy (meaning have all the html handy). Add a video to each page spin anywhere on the page, probably at the bottom to make it easier. Load up the Google Video Sitemap plugin, and it will autosubmit to Google when created.

I give you my ironclad 100% guarantee that Goggle bots will be crawling over that website - in minutes - like ants on a piece of food on the ground. Guaranteed.

2Take2

You can also create a [fake] google account and submit the urls directly to the index via this page "http://www.google.co.uk/submit_content.html" which will get them crawled almost instantly.

I use this on my money sites to test the results of onpage SEO tweaks, and to index new pages without having a GWT account. It works really well.