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I have two different TLDs for same domain name. Let's say example.com and example.es. All of the traffic to example.es is 301 redirected to example.com. Besides that, most of the pages in example.com have a canonical meta tag pointing to itself.

Despite that, Google is indexing example.es. If I write site:example.es in the google search bar, it shows some results.

Is this bad for SEO of example.com? What's the best way to go? I guess Google shouldn't have indexed example.es, but I'm not sure.

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A site: search is not a reliable way of showing what is indexed. It shows indexed pages as well as redirecting pages that are not indexed. While URLs from your redirecting domain show up in a site: search for that domain, your redirecting domain won't show up in any normal Google search query.

If you want to see what is indexed on your alternate domain, you can verify a property for it in Google Search Console and inspect the URLs. You should find that the redirecting URLs that show up in the site: search are not actually indexed and that Google is instead indexing the canonical URL on your main domain.

These redirecting URLs don't hurt the SEO of your main domain, even when they show up in a site: query.

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  • Could you please provide some source of your statement? I'm waiting for search console to provide some insights, as I've just verified the property...
    – José L.
    Sep 24, 2021 at 17:51
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    Here is a relevant article that quotes statements from Google about how site: shouldn't be used to see what is indexed: Mueller Says Don't Make Assumptions Based on Site: Search I also have personal experience with this. More than 10 years ago I redirected thousands of pages from my personal domain to its own site. If I do a site: search for my personal domain, Google still shows those redirecting pages even though the other site has been operational for more than a decade and has great SEO.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Sep 24, 2021 at 18:02

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