SEO impact of redirecting high ranking mirror site to the main website

[dasickle]

During SEO audit for a client I noticed that they had over a dozen duplicate websites that are carbon copies of the main website. This was done via CMS platform and DNS. One of the mirror sites has about 400 indexed pages and has Moz DA of 42 and 137k External Equity-Passing Links. Full metrics comparison is attached.

I originally planned on doing rel="canonical" on the mirror site but the CMS vendor never even heard of it and is refusing to implement it in the header. My only other option is doing one to one 301 redirects.

Since the mirror site ranks well, even competes with main domain for some positions on the 1st page of SERP, what will be the impact after the redirects? Is doing 301's still the best option?

Thanks!

PrUpN3q

[dasickle]

Thanks. I will just go with 301 and see how it turns out.

[DirkC]

If you want to know how much traffic this domain is getting you could easily put a filter in Analytics which allows you to see the domain name when checking the pageviews.

Create a new view in Analytics and apply a filter with following settings:
Filter Type: Custom
Select: Advanced
Field A -> Extract A: Select: Hostname value: (.)
Field B -> Extract B: Select: Request URI value: (.)
Output To -> Constructor Select: Request URI value: /$A1$B1
Mark Field A: required & Mark "Override Output Field

You could also combine all the different copies in one set in the Search Console - which would make it easier to check if there is an impact when activating the 301's.

Regardless of the traffic, the 301 remains the best option - some people say it does dilute pagerank - Google says it doesn't

As both Search Console & Analytics are not retroactive you could already make them active, wait a few weeks in order to collect sufficient data and then activate the redirects.

Dirk

[dasickle]

Thanks for responding.

I am hesitant to go with 301s because not all link juice will be passed or I am wrong about that? I can't even gauge the impact this could have on traffic since the main domain and the mirrored site had the same GA tracking on them. All traffic channel data is a mess. Since mirrored website's DA is in the 40's and it is ranking on page one in SERP for a number of major keywords I assume it is getting decent traffic.

P.S.

I have already verified the mirrored domains in GSC and just waiting to pull the trigger on the 301s before informing G about the move.

[DirkC]

You don't seem to have much options if canonicals are not possible.

To be honest - in cases like this I wouldn't use canonicals but always go for 301 redirects. They are pretty easy to implement (2 lines of code in htacess) and they are directives Google has to follow (and will pass pagerank). Canonicals are mere requests to Google that it can but is not obliged to respect.

Would also indicate in the Search Console of the duplicates that you're moving them to the main domain (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en) - you need to validate the duplicate domains before implementing the redirects.

Dirk