URLs indexed by IP address and domain name - how to remove the IP versions - Google Search and SEO forum at WebmasterWorld

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URLs indexed by IP address and domain name - how to remove the IP versions

gomer

3:22 am on Jan 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hello,

I'm looking after a site that is being cached by its IP.

I'll explain. Let's say the site is www.example.com and it resides at IP address: a.b.c.d

well

site:example.com yields all the pages of the site as it should

site:a.b.c.d yeilds some pages of the site (not all)

I am guessing this was caused by someone linking to those pages by IP. We can't say that for sure but that is what is suspected.

My question is: Will the Google Webmaster console allow us to remove the pages cached by IP? If not, how can I remove these pages but keep the ones cached by domain name in the index?

As you can probably guess, I'm wondering about duplicate content implications. I checked out a few other sites and Google generally does not show caches by IP address.

Has anyone else seen this situation before?

Thanks.
Gomer

tedster

9:22 am on Jan 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

You can use a 301 permanent redirect on your website - one that redirects requests for the ip address urls to the domain name version of those urls. If you're on an Apache server, try the advice from jdMorgan this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]

After you do that, don't worry about removing the IP address versions from Webmaster Tools. They will quickly fall out of the active index, and eventually out of Webmaster Tools, too. WMT is basically a reporting function for the webmaster, and it's not tied directly to any ranking function. So the report on the IP addresses may stay alive for a while, but you'll stop getting traffic that way and you should avoid any strangeness in the filters.

gomer

3:27 pm on Jan 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Thanks Tedster, that is a good solution and I'll use it.

I realized Webmaster Tools is really a reporting tool for webmasters but it does allow you to choose a version of your site (www or non www) so I was wondering if it had the ability to remove the site by IP as well.

Robert Charlton

11:03 pm on Jan 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

It's best to set up your site properly on the server if you can. The WMT options are for those who don't have the knowledge, server capabilities, or server access. They're not a complete fix, and they only apply to Google.