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Ok, so I have been chasing this issue for weeks now through Google's community forums, running tests, hosting support and no one has been able to provide any answers as to what is happening with one of our client's websites.

This is the domain in question: https://distinctiveinteriordesigns.com

Here is a complete list of operations performed for this property:

  1. DNS is managed through Cloudflare and I have a Page Rule setup to force HTTPS to the mentioned version of the domain.
  2. All variants of the domain are claimed through search console
  3. I have set the preferred version of the domain to the non-www version
  4. All variants have been "fetched & rendered" and properly show that they are in fact 301'd
  5. Home page is not being blocked by any robots.txt and has the correct canonical tag in the header

I have tried finding the duplicate by searching for phrases on the home page in Google and nothing really turns up. The only thing that I can see is that maybe Google is confused about the fact there is another TLD out there that is similar to this domain: http://www.distinctiveinteriordesigns.net - which is also a similar type of business, but it is a completely different TLD and has completely different content.

But in some searches I am seeing this:

Google search results

(that is my client's address showing below the search result)

I am at a loss on this and have been pulling my hair out over it and I am just about bald at this point. If anyone has any insight or some other suggestions to try, I am all ears.

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  • "Google thinks this is the same business" - That's not what that search result suggests. It's simply telling you that those terms you searched for are not contained in the linked result. As @Micheald suggests, from the information given, it just looks like the other brand/site is probably ranking above you for the other keywords/phrases you searched for. – MrWhite Mar 30 '18 at 14:53
  • I was merely pointing out that it was placed below the other domain in a search result page, possibly as an indication that Google thinks that my client's address "should" be associated with that domain. Again, my head has been spinning on this and maybe just grasping at straws at this point. – Jason Ryan Mar 30 '18 at 15:26
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If you are searching for your domain name's brand on Google and your .net competitor is showing up in the results, that is because Google believes the .net site is the stronger brand and wants to show that.

In order to rank your site for your brand you will have to continue to succeed and push your company. Eventually, you may rank for your brand's name alongside the .net site.

You can try to use site:example.com in Google search. It will show you if your site is properly indexed. If you use site:example.com and example.net searches show up instead, then there would be a serious problem there. Most likely, your client's website will show up if it is indexed.

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  • If I run site:distinctiveinteriordesigns.com - the .net domain doesn't show in results, nor does my client's home page, but funny thing is that if I do the same for the competitors site, their home page doesn't show up either in results. So Google may ultimately be confused by this for the time being? – Jason Ryan Mar 30 '18 at 15:23

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