What is a site mirror?

Mirrors are sites located at different URLs that have the same content. To avoid duplicate information in the search results, Yandex groups such sites as mirrors:
  • Main mirror — the URL shown in search results.
  • Secondary mirror — a URL that isn't included in search results.

When you combine the accumulated metrics, some of them are assigned to the main mirror, for example, external links of the old site are considered external links of the new one. The External links in Yandex.Webmaster page shows URLs specified on a third-party site.

You can let the robot know which site it should consider the main mirror. If there are no instructions, the robot uses special algorithms to detect the main mirror.

Site representation Example Will mirrors be grouped?
The site is accessible at URLs with and without the "www" prefix www.example.com and example.com
The site is available over HTTP and HTTPS http://example.com and https://example.com
The site is located in different domain zones example.com and example.ru —
Identical content is displayed in different domains example.com and other-example.ru —
Site representation Example Will mirrors be grouped?
The site is accessible at URLs with and without the "www" prefix www.example.com and example.com
The site is available over HTTP and HTTPS http://example.com and https://example.com
The site is located in different domain zones example.com and example.ru —
Identical content is displayed in different domains example.com and other-example.ru —

When you change a site's URL or main mirror, it usually takes about a month for changes to appear in the search results. If you followed the instructions when moving or separating sites, but the changes didn't appear in the search results, contact support.

Tell us what your question is about so we can direct you to the right specialist:

The main mirror changed by mistake
The site is presented in the search results with the wrong URL
Site domain name changed
HTTP / HTTPS changed
The "www" prefix is added or removed
The moving request isn't accepted
Sites are not separated for a long time

The main mirror of the site may change if a redirect or the rel="canonical" attribute pointing to the site that became the main mirror is set on the old site pages. To avoid automatic selection the main mirror in the future, make sure that all non-main mirror pages redirect to the corresponding pages of the desired main mirror.

This means that the robot selected the main site mirror automatically. Specify the correct website URL for the robot, following the recommendations in the Moving a website to a new domain name section.

Main reasons why the sites aren't grouped:

  • In the source code of the site that should become the main mirror contains the rel="canonical" attribute. Delete it and submit the request for moving again.
  • The site is unavailable or responds with a long delay.
  • The sites' content doesn't match. Check if the internal page URLs and headers match.
  • The site is moving to another domain zone without a redirect.
  • Site indexing is prohibited in the robots.txt file.
  • Violations of the Search rules are detected on the site. View the details on the Security and violations page in Yandex.Webmaster and fix the errors. After 2 weeks, check that the message about the violation disappears from Yandex.Webmaster, and re-send the request.
  • The request was sent from the site to move to.
  • Internal service error. Try sending the request later.