How to remove duplicate content, which is still indexed, but not linked to anymore?

Posted by David on Pro Webmasters See other posts from Pro Webmasters or by David
Published on 2012-11-20T08:48:00Z Indexed on 2012/11/20 11:27 UTC
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A bug in the tool, which we use to create search-engine-friendly URLs changed our whole URL-structure overnight, and we only noticed after Google already indexed the page.

Now, we have a massive duplicate content issue, causing a harsh drop in rankings. Webmaster Tools shows over 1,000 duplicate title tags, so I don't think, Google understands what is going on.

Right URL: abc.com/price/sharp-ah-l13-12000-btu.html
Wrong URL: abc.com/item/sharp-l-series-ahl13-12000-btu.html (created by mistake)

After that, we ...

  • Changed back all URLs to the "Right URLs"
  • Set up a 301-redirect for all "Wrong URLs" a few days later

Now, still a massive amount of pages is in the index twice. As we do not link internally to the "Wrong URLs" anymore, I am not sure, if Google will re-crawl them very soon.

What can we do to solve this issue and tell Google, that all the "Wrong URLs" now redirect to the "Right URLs"?

Best, David

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