Drupal, Aliasing, Duplicate Content, Backlinks & Rankings Question

[PROFRBcom]

We use Drupal for our website. As such, each page is on a node when created. So lets say our latest article is domain/node/1067 - When we publish it, we give it an alias of lets say domain/online-poker-news/XYZ-poker-site/news-description. The page can be accessed from both URLs. We can also go in there and make an entirely new alias for the same page, say somthing like domain/omg-breaking-news-at-xyz-site. All 3 URLs lead to the same content.
So with the scenario here where there are 3 ways to access the content, I'm not sure what happens, how it works, and if we could screw something up by creating the 3rd URL.

The domain/node URL is never indexed/returned in search engine results if an aliased URL has been created. The 2nd URL, the aliased one created when the page is published, is the URL given in search. To further the scenario, the orginally published URL:

1) Has existing external (and a **** ton of internal that would be difficult to change) backlinks
2) Is already ranking in SERPS, but not as well as we'd hope.
3) Was very poorly constructed structurally, looks awkward, and is KW stuffed

What we DO KNOW:

If we create another alias for this URL but do not link to it onsite, but only have it in our autogenerated sitemap:

1) Google will pick it up and start ranking it in a handful of days.
2) Google will still be ranking the original URL as well (at least in the short term).

What we DO NOT KNOW:

1) If google will penalize us for duplicate content since one page has 2 URLs and both URLs ostensibly lead to the exact same content. (we're not sure if Google knows the difference?)
2) If google will count all those internal and external backlinks to the original URL for the new URL or if we are shooting ourselves in the foot by losing accumulated backlinks.
3) If it is a good or bad idea to create the new URL, which is the one we'd like to be shown publicly since it is cleaner, more readable, etc


Any and all help appreciated!

[Christiaan]

What version of Drupal are you using?

Drupal creates a canonical tag to the current alias. If you look to the source code of the pages (domain/online-poker-news/XYZ-poker-site/news-description and domain/node/1067) it should have a canonical link to domain/omg-breaking-news-at-xyz-site. This should be enough for Google to know it links all to the same content and not to penalize you for it.

It is be better if you redirect the old alias to the new alias with a 301 redirect. Google will stop indexing the old alias and will transfer the power to the new alias.

1) No, as long as the canonical tag is there you should be fine.
2) If you use a 301 redirect as I advised you shouldn't notice much of it.
3) As long as it improves the user experience it is better.

[Pmig]

Wich modules are you using to create the alias? "Pathauto"? Are you using "Redirect" module?

The 3rd url creation is very very odd.

I have a lot of sites with drupal (and I'm also a drupal contributer as I my prefered framework), so If you need, send me the url by pm and I will give a more detailed look.

Ps: If is the profrb I already noticed you are not using the "transliteration" module and have "strange" urls with upper and lower cases (you should use only lower cases). As you are using the metatag module with canonical urls set you should not worry about the 3 urls.. but that 3rd url is at minimum very odd..

[PROFRBcom]

We're using Drupal 7.

The different types of URL strategies are a result of different writers, ignorance, growing pains, etc.

Unfortunately we don't have the capability to 301 redirect, get new modules installed easily (long story). The original alias URL is created using "URL path settings" The 3rd URL was created by going to Home > Administration > Configuration > search and metadata > then choosing add alias, inputting the existing node (whether it has a URL already or not) and saving it... then both aliases show for the node.

Here is an example:

http://www.professionalrakeback.com/node/14
http://professionalrakeback.com/merge
http://professionalrakeback.com/Carb...Offer-Rakeback

[Pmig]

Please ask your host to add this following modules:

https://www.drupal.org/project/redirect
https://www.drupal.org/project/pathauto
https://www.drupal.org/project/transliteration

If drush is installed on server is so simple as: cd /home/YOUR_PATH/publi_html && drush -y en redirect pathauto transliteration

With this modules the urls are allways created with a defined (by you) pattern, the proper 301 are placed.

And please do yourself a favour and put your site on a "modern" hosting.

You are on a php 5.2.10 server, not only is slow, is also obsolete and could be insecure.

"HTTP/1.1 200 OK =>
Date => Mon, 08 Dec 2014 20:36:48 GMT
Server => Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS)
X-Powered-By => PHP/5.2.10"

And there is no reason to not have 301 settings on a apache server.

You are using a canonical tag, who minimize the penalty for duplicate content but... you are wasting crawler budget, on a medium/long run your serps takes more time to update.

I don't want to be too much technical but that is the minimum you can do right now to avoid complications.

[Pmig]

just a one more quick reply just to say you have also a problem on your xml sitemap xxxxhttp://www.professionalrakeback.com/sitemap.xml

So, with this basic things you can do a lot for your seo strategies and this is just the surface...

[Cherokeecasino]

Never before you have the case that content that is not original affect the ranking or Web search engine optimization, with the exception of a very extreme case in which some PR firm copied the home page of a site, using it for different events they had to cover.

Within minutes, there were literally hundreds of copies of this Web site across the network, containing exactly the same information, which set off alarm bells in Google. Within minutes, the site had been sanctioned.

After this, the owners of the original site raised a complaint with Google, reviewed the case and lifted the sanction.

This is one of the few cases in which Google has sanctioned a site for duplicate content, and as we can see, is a special case, as there were hundreds of sites with exactly the same information, all published at the same time and all with exactly the same design with different domains.

However, this is not what most people mean when they are talking about "duplicate content". Usually they refer to a copy of 2,000 words on a site, and it takes much more than this to turn the red lights on Google.

Many sites, including the most popular blogs in the network, usually return to post articles that have appeared elsewhere. In this case, they do not expect will rank in the top positions of the search engine, but they also know that it will not damage the communication of your site.