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A domain has 12 mirror sites and all of them are indexed. As a matter of fact one of the mirror domains (44 Moz domain authority) is competing with the primary domain (62 Moz domain authority) on page 1 of SERP for a number of keywords. All mirrored sites were done via domain registrar's DNS dashboard so there is no server to do the 301s.

Is setting up each mirrored domain on new hosting server and doing one to one 301 redirects to the main domain the best bet?

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    They do not have to be on the same server (though that is likely wise), however, doing a 301 redirect seems wise to me. As well, when you say mirror sites, I assume a dozen domains (not sub-domains) all with the exact same content. If this is the case, it is probably also wise just to drop the unneeded domains. Pick one and be done. My two centavos. That and a donkey will get you a cup of coffee! Cheers!!
    – closetnoc
    May 1, 2016 at 1:47
  • @closetnoc Yup all domain mirror the content of the main domain via one of those stupid features that Network Solutions has as part of their DNS settings. The goal is to do 301 on all mirror sites and point everything to the main domain.
    – dasickle
    May 1, 2016 at 1:50
  • I am not sure why anyone pays NetSol for anything these days. They were trying recruit Cricket Liu (Author of DNS and Bind) back in the day. When they could not get Cricket, they tried to recruit me. The decision was an easy one. Run away! I had contacts high up that allowed me to make immediate changes to any registration, but that was as far as I wanted to get involved. When GoDaddy came about, as a web host, I transferred almost all of the domains immediately and never looked back.
    – closetnoc
    May 1, 2016 at 2:01
  • @closetnoc So I setup 1 to 1 redirects and added all sites to Search Console. Is it worth telling G that those mirror sites moved to the primary domain? Most have Moz DA under 5 and two are in the mid 40s.
    – dasickle
    Jun 15, 2016 at 16:41
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    @Jurga I did have access to the other sites. Unfortunately, since the sites were all mirrored, the GA code was the same. I did do the 301s and told G that the mirrored sites have moved by submitting the change of address. I will post an answer in a bit.
    – dasickle
    Jun 23, 2016 at 18:22

1 Answer 1

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If your concern is soley about SERP ranking and these sites are direct mirrors of your primary site (ie: no change to the content on any of the mirrors) then the other option would be to add a rel='canonical' meta tag to each page ti identify the primary domain as the canonical page. This was specifically done to allow duplicated content such as from mirrors to work properly with SERP ranking. By doing this you will not affect the root benefit of a mirror site (where the content is accessible under multiple domains, if this is in fact required) but you will retain the primary site as the authoratative source for the mirrored sites as well and will maintain the primary site as a high level in SERP ranking.

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