Member Avatar for Tekmaven

The site I do a lot of work for, , has three ways of getting to the content: , , and .

= PR7
= PR6
= PR6

Keep in mind, all of those URLs are the exact same website. Would it be beneficial to get rid of ? I'm just fearing that becase we have so many urls, links to our site is spread out over different base URLs, and Google thinks that and are different sites (and thus giving them different PR ratings).

Any comments?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by gazraz101

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This is exactly the kind of canonicalization problem that fragments ranking signals and makes Google pick its own “best” URL rather than yours. rightly worries about split links; and steered you to the right approach. The reliable fix is to pick one canonical host (www or non‑www) and enforce it with server‑side 3xx redirects, plus supply rel="canonical" links and a sitemap that lists your preferred URLs so Google can consolidate duplicates. (developers.google.com)

If the chosen canonical is the naked domain, use a server rule that redirects the other hosts to it (don’t rely on client‑side or meta refreshes). Example Apache .htaccess that redirects only the two alternate hosts to the canonical host (change to https if the site supports it):

# Redirect www.bink.nu and winxp.bink.nu -> https://bink.nu
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www|winxp)\.bink\.nu$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://bink.nu/$1 [L,R=301]

If some subdomains must stay (mail., api., etc.) exclude them explicitly. Test redirects with curl -I to confirm a 301 response and a single hop. (httpd.apache.org)

Google removed the old “preferred domain” setting in Search Console, so you now signal preference with redirects, rel="canonical", and the sitemap rather than a control panel toggle. Make internal links, canonical tags, and your sitemap consistently use the chosen host; outreach and directory listings should use that same variant. (developers.google.com)

A quick clarifier on PageRank: the toolbar PR numbers shown in older tools are obsolete and no longer a reliable public metric—don’t chase those visible PR values. Focus on consolidating links, correct redirects, and useful content instead. (searchengineland.com)

Practical checklist: pick canonical host; implement server 301s for the others; add self‑referential rel="canonical" on pages; submit sitemap with canonical URLs; verify coverage with Search Console and fix any redirect chains. Cosmetic tweaks (changing colors/logos as suggested) won’t solve duplicate indexing — either consolidate or publish genuinely distinct content per host.

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Member Avatar for Dani

It's horrendous practice to keep all three URLs active. First choose one URL you want to use from now on. Preferably it would be with the www, but has a high PR without it, so I would go with that. Use an .htaccess file to 301 Redirect and to bink.nu. At the end of google's next update, it will take into consideration it's the same page, and PR will (I believe) be forwarded, along with all backlinks. Check out [thread]7965[/thread] for more info.

Member Avatar for I, Brian

The problem is that you are playing Russian Roulette with the duplicate content filters - best to use a 301 redirect on 2 of the domain names, or simply park them on the other domain.

Member Avatar for gazraz101

I agree with I Brian, Google hates duplicate content, If i were you , i would change soem of the content, alter the theme colours and the logo.

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