A family friend came to me yesterday and was wondering why his website was on a steady SERP decline and was now listed on page 3 along with obscure blog, facebook, and forum posts for his keyword combo.
I checked into his website and found a bunch of strange 90's style things going on that I haven't encountered for well.....since the 90's.
His website has practically the same age and backlink structure as the sites on page 1 but........
He has 2 identical websites. About 15 years ago his webmaster convinced him to buy keywordkeywordkeyword.com and companyname.com, then published both websites as identical copies.
His index page (for both) is an old school porn style doorway page. It simply has about 25 words about his company then points to home.htm (what should be his index page) and his order form on his webmaster's website. His webmaster hosts all of his client's order forms on 1 website with an ssl from what I found.
All of his internal pages point back to home.htm which is a big problem. Nothing but external links point to index.htm.
I don't want to get too involved in this project because there is no money on the table here. He is however a family friend so I'm kind of obligated. I need to make a quick, short plan for his webmaster that involves me as little as possible.
I'm thinking about asking his webmaster to:
1. 301 Redirect companyname.com to keywordkeywordkeyword.com
2. Have his webmaster remove doorway page and replace with his home.htm and fix navigation to point to index.htm insead of home.htm.
3. Ask his webmaster to host order form on keywordkeywordkeyword.com with ssl.
Should he also redirect home.htm to index.htm where it will be moving to, and the old order.htm (on webmaster's site) to order.htm on keywordkeywordkeyword.com to avoid duplicate content because it is moving?
I've avoided duplicate content like the flu for so long I don't truly know how to handle it. I would appreciate any help thanks.
- Transplant
I checked into his website and found a bunch of strange 90's style things going on that I haven't encountered for well.....since the 90's.
His website has practically the same age and backlink structure as the sites on page 1 but........
He has 2 identical websites. About 15 years ago his webmaster convinced him to buy keywordkeywordkeyword.com and companyname.com, then published both websites as identical copies.
His index page (for both) is an old school porn style doorway page. It simply has about 25 words about his company then points to home.htm (what should be his index page) and his order form on his webmaster's website. His webmaster hosts all of his client's order forms on 1 website with an ssl from what I found.
All of his internal pages point back to home.htm which is a big problem. Nothing but external links point to index.htm.
I don't want to get too involved in this project because there is no money on the table here. He is however a family friend so I'm kind of obligated. I need to make a quick, short plan for his webmaster that involves me as little as possible.
I'm thinking about asking his webmaster to:
1. 301 Redirect companyname.com to keywordkeywordkeyword.com
2. Have his webmaster remove doorway page and replace with his home.htm and fix navigation to point to index.htm insead of home.htm.
3. Ask his webmaster to host order form on keywordkeywordkeyword.com with ssl.
Should he also redirect home.htm to index.htm where it will be moving to, and the old order.htm (on webmaster's site) to order.htm on keywordkeywordkeyword.com to avoid duplicate content because it is moving?
I've avoided duplicate content like the flu for so long I don't truly know how to handle it. I would appreciate any help thanks.
- Transplant
