When it comes to duplicate content, Google typically compares one web page versus another web page. So, if the site does have a different company name (franchise name) and carries a different set of products or a some similar products, then it sounds as if the pages on the site won't be considered duplicates. They may be similar, but not necessarily duplicates. It would be best to make sure that each site doesn't use the same exact web design template, as well.

You can run the site through Copyscape.com and Siteliner.com to identify duplicate content issues with the sites. Most good writers will be able to write the content in a way that talks about the same products or services but doesn't include the same text as other sites.

When you have a page that's still on the site (even though it's removed from navigation), the page is still on the site and indexed--so users will still get to it. It's still probably going to rank for at least something in the search results.

What you need to do is figure out if the page still contains valid content and is useful for visitors. There's obviously a reason that the page was requested to be removed by the content manager, though.

If the page needs to be removed from navigation, and it won't have any internal links, then most likely you probably need to remove the page, as well. What I would do is set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from that URL to another on-topic page on the site. As long as you use a 301 redirect and redirect it to another internal page on the same domain, you won't lose and "SEO value".

With 10 URLs ( I think you mean 10 different domains?), you should be fine. If those URLs have a lot of links pointing to them, though, there could potentially be an issue. So, if there were 1,000 links to each one, then you'd be redirecting 10,000 links. It really depends on how many links we're ultimately talking about.

I have seen situations where thousands of domains were redirected, and that was a problem--it was also a problem with about 100 domains redirected, as they all had links pointing to them.

What I would do is look at your analytics to see which of them are actually sending traffic to your site, which ones have links pointing to them. Then only redirect the ones that have traffic and links and ones that are on-topic.

There are plenty of very large sites doing this--it's natural for them to link to the sites that they own. It all really comes down to the sites' link profiles, and if their link profile is diversified enough. If those links are the only links (or a large portion of) the links that they have, there might be an issue. But if the parent site is trusted enough, has a high enough Domain Authority, then most likely the site won't be penalized for the parent site linking to them.

For a true 404 error page, Google wouldn't tell you about those errors. You may have a custom 404 error page set up with the tracking code on it and visitors are going to those 404 error page(s). But, since it's JavaScript that must load, then you won't see 404 errors in Google Analytics.

Each individual website (and some subdomains if you add them) needs a unique robots.txt file. You can copy the same file and use it again and again on each site, but each one needs a robots.txt file.

Akira, there really is no direct connection between AdWords and organic rankings. However, there have been studies that show that if you show up in AdWords and in organic search for a search query it will benefit your organic--the visitors will tend to click on your organic listings and on the PPC ads.

Organic is not affected by PPC.

You may be able to pause the low-converting ads while still keeping the higher-converting ones. Furthermore, there may be other keywords that you can bid on that you aren't showing up for. I would look at Google Search Console's Search Analytics report and look at the impressions for organic and see which keywords are getting impressions but not clicks. That may reveal some keywords that you may want to bid on.

All in all, though, if you want to totally pause your AdWords ads it won't affect your rankings.

Jarred,

Whenever you move to a new domain name Google will keep the old domain name indexed for up to a year (or longer!). It's just the way that Google does it, I suspect that it's because you may change your mind and go back to the old domain.

Having the old domain indexed in Google isn't a problem, as users should be redirected to the content on the new domain.

It will take up to a year for Google to stop indexing the old domain.

By the way, make sure you use the Google Change of Address Tool in Google Search Console, it will really help.

Regarding the GCLIDs, you'll want to update  your Google AdWords campaigns and anywhere else you can updated the URLs to the new HTTPs version of your site.

Whenever you use a 301 Permanent Redirect  you typically lose the referrer data, so that's why you're going to see issues with the referrers.

I would definitely use the 301 permanent redirects and NOT use the canonical tag for this. Also, don't forget to verify the HTTPs version of your site in Google Search Console, as well. We recommend getting a few new links to the HTTPs version of the site, as that will help with indexing and crawling.

Giovatto is right, the only way it would have any effect on Google Analytics is if you're tracking those page titles. I usually recommend tracking the URL, and not the title tag in Google Analytics. If the pages are dynamic and the title tags change all the time depending on the user, that would be one way to track the title--but you should be doing it by the URL in most cases.

It really shouldn't be an issue, as most sites will use a 301 to redirect pages without a / to a URL with a slash and vice versa. It depends on your particular CMS, though, on how it deals with it. I know that on certain sites that I am familiar with do redirect the pages without a / to pages with a slash, so linking internally to a page without a slash does a 301 redirect to a URL with the slash.

When it comes to Google, however, I believe Google treats both at the same, so http://www.domain.com is the same as http://www.domain.com/

The only concern I would have is whether or not the URL without the slash redirects properly to the URL with the slash.

Your best bet is to make sure you comply with Google's guidelines, the Bing guidelines are typically similar.

It also depends on how the business relationship is set up. If they're independent contractors of the company then it would be different than if they were employees of the company.

Generally speaking, we typically recommend setting up "suite numbers" for the business location, and those need to be clearly marked at the location. I have heard of cases where Google has looked to make sure that this is the case.