Referrals Dropping! IP ISSUE?

Hello All,

I work for a major marketing and research company that houses a lot of client sites on one IP address (years ago they used to have their own individual IPs). Whats happening is that search engines are starting to index a mismatch combination of our sites...example:

SiteA - SiteB

Search Engine Index Results:
...http://www.siteA.com/SiteBdirectory/siteA.jsp
..http://www.siteB.com/SiteAdirectory/siteB.jsp

When searching for SiteA, the pages are coming up in the SERPs under SiteB's domain name, but include SiteA's directory, displaying SiteA's framework, but with broken images and links, while content (text) remains SiteA. The site is fully navigational, but the pages are swamped with broken links/images.

This is starting to create a huge dive in referrals, yet our impressions are still staying solid from our SEO efforts. I'm starting to think we're getting blacklisted because of this error, because none of our Tier 2/3 pages for SiteA are making the SERPs. What could be the problem, and is it fixable, and have there been other cases of this issue? We're looking into our IP Server control mechanism (Zeus) and how the architecture may be causing the issue, yet out developers continue to tell us its an issue with the search engine and that "this shouldn't be happening".

Please advise.

Thanks,
Zach M
SEO Analyst

Welcome to SEF

If the following URLs are wrong and doesn't exist then those URLs should return 404 error.

...http://www.siteA.com/SiteBdirectory/siteA.jsp
..http://www.siteB.com/SiteAdirectory/siteB.jsp

But as per your post, the above URLs are NOT returning 404 error but returning the page content, right? If it is correct then it's YOUR developers fault.

Most probably, their Java Servlet coding is WRONG.

Please note: The above opinion is based upon your post. I don't know all parameters so there is a little chance that I may be wrong.

Thank you, sir! Its good to be among the best and the brightest!

My thoughts exactly. For some of our major sites, there are 404 errors already in place (but this might not have to do with the issue (mostly bc I think our majors are housed on a separate IP), and for these instances (which seem to be growing as new article pages are being dynamically created everyday) there is no way to 301 redirect any of these pages going out (obviously)...still, (as a band-aid solution) they've decided to create a bit of code to designate the corresponding pages called by the user, BUT this also could create a major problem with overhead as each user hits this block of code, make sense? I'll try taking the Java Servlet point up with them, but in the meantime, could there be any alternative solutions?

Thanks for your help, Dinkar! Glad to be here...

[ Message was edited by: rainmaker3000 04/02/2008 07:19 am ]

If you have more than one site, then you'd be most unwise to mix them up in any way shape or form, and I cannot imagine why you'd choose to do that.

If the sites require interlinking, then consider merging onto one domain (problem solved).

Else cancel this years bonuses until the techies stop taking dangerous short cuts!

You have conjoined site syndrome, which is not as rare as you'd think, and need not be fatal, provided the sites do not share major organs.

The surgery is delicate, and requires skilled operatives; the sooner it takes place the better.

Unlike human surgery, you have the ability to make backups first, and I strongly suggest that you take measures to protect your content before you commence.

You may have a parallel duplicate content issue (3-1 FAV); you'd be well advised to deal with this at the same time.

Once surgery is complete, check for 'missing pages' - xenu may be your friend - and consider 301s to forward arrivals to 'real' pages.

Finally, if your company has a 'no blame' policy, you may wish to reconsider

[added:] this is probably NOT an IP issue, but a database issue (if one database is serving multiple sites). BUT worth double checking your server setup too.

[ Message was edited by: Quadrille 04/02/2008 09:02 am ]

Something tells me I may be on thin ice with this one, haha. I'd prefer playing Operation to being behind the knife, so to speak...

Unfortunately for us, these are all separate entities that are like little kids..they don't like sharing. Either way, I can already see this going down in two scenarios...back-up content, the control mechanism that designates the mapping of these sites (Zeus, I believe its called) gets reassessed and adjusted settings, 301 stragglers, sit back and pray...OR...finally invest in that goat ranch I've always been dreaming about...

Thanks, Quadrille...after the issue have been fixed, is there a way to re-index our site pages to regain referrals, or are we back to square one? Kind of a rhetorical question, but hey, its Wednesday.

SCALPEL!


P.S. - Would creating code (band-aid) to setup IF statements to designate the user to the appropriate domain be making things worse by the search engine standards (black hat SEO)? (...not to mention the overhead it might create..)

[ Message was edited by: rainmaker3000 04/02/2008 10:31 am ]

I'm no techie, but my gut feeling about more sticking plaster is that it may do more damage - at best, it'll just prolong the agony.

From my reading of similar-ish problems, there's a fair chance that it's a very minor problem, that can be very easily sorted - after all, what you are seeking to do is no different to what many thousands of others are doing on a daily basis.

I don't THINK that there's a black-hat risk here, just the risk of losing SE indexing; the best post-fix solution is almost certainly 301s.

Depending on the size of the sites, xenu may find what's 'missing', to enable you to sert up those 301s, site by site, folder by folder or (ouch) page by page.

While I'm pretty confident about the principles I'm talking about, I'm totally ignorant about how to achieve them ... hopefully, there'll be someone who knows about such things, along soon ...

Good Luck!

You've been a great help! Thank you guys for all your assistance in my lil' conundrum. Is been very enlightening, glad to be part of the SEF neighborhood!