Cloudflare 522 error means old domain not being redirected

[Caroline]

Hello,

A client had an old domain -Domain A -which was being redirected we think (it was before our time). The client let the old domain expire unfortunately and it was bought by someone unknown. So we have no access to it. The problem is that the redirects don't work anymore. Since it is over a year it should be fine. But when I do a site:domain command, I see that the old domain homepage is in the index but when I click the search results, the error is a 522 CloudFlare connection error.

So it seems that the search engines still think that the homepage exists, but they cannot access it to find the 301 or a 404.
I am investigating because the new domain, Domain B, has a home page that doesn't rank well, and the content is nearly the same as that of the old domain, Domain A (using Wayback machine).

My thoughts are that since Google still has the old homepage with Domain A in the index but can't access it to see the redirect, it thinks it exists independently and when it checks Domain B (NEW DOMAIN), it sees two home pages with nearly the same content and so penalises Domain B.

Would this be a correct way of thinking things through? Other pages on Domain B rank well so it is just affecting the homepage. Any thoughts would be welcome as well as any solutions!
Thanks

 

[keyserholiday]

The old domain stopped redirecting once the domain expired. I doubt your homepage ranking issues are related to this domain.

 

[Caroline]

Thanks. Yes, I think that the redirect is gone. That is the problem. Also, the old domain's (www) homepage seems to be in Google's index if I use the site command. Clicking it leads to a 522 error- not a 410 or 404. So, Google thinks it is an independent website different from Domain B. It can't access it to see that it is a 404 now. Perhaps, the www version was never set up properly as a redirect unlike the non-www version of the domain ( the non www versions go to a 404 page). So at one point, the www version was indexed when it should have been redirected. So in the index is the old www homepage and the new domain homepage - no redirection. I feel that is the root cause