Very successful part of my site has new domain name registered

What is the best option?

[uk_webber]

I have a successful sub topic of my main site and have registered subtopic.com for this..

Should I just forward the URL onto www.mainsite.com/subtopic or do a 301?

[Webwork]

This is a bit more of a SEO issue.

Actually, I'd vote for an indepenent site at the URL - with rewritten content to avoid duplication issues. Different host. Different IP. A bit of insurance for the day . . .

[Frequent]

...and the day will come. I agree- separate them for safety and security.

Freq---

[uk_webber]

Thanks for your help guys - a new site it is then...

[chodges84]

so if i had an ecommerce site www.example.co.uk and opened one up in America www.example.com, with american hosting etc. The contents exactly the same except for the prices, would i be penalised?

[edited by: Webwork at 2:08 pm (utc) on Aug. 28, 2005]
[edit reason] Per charter please stick to Example.com for hypothetical domains [/edit]

[Webwork]

There's a rationale consensus that SE algos/filters appear to be - or ought to be - filtering out or weighting down sites that are mere copies of one another. What good is it, to searchers, to offer up the next - the 238th copy - of an affiliate site?

There are no doubt other factors that come into play: First to appear in the SERPs, most IBLs, unique IP, CC TLD, hosting/IP within country, whether the searcher choses to localize their search to a country, etc. There's no clear answer for the masses to your specific question, though consensus suggests "don't do it" - don't make duplicate sites. Those who have earned the insights needed to make well informed decisions have spent thousands of dollars and many hours testing hundreds, if not thousands of domains/sites, to see how small changes effect SE "digestion". That type of insight is not shared in public forums. If you want the best answer you have to run tests - lots of them.

The bottom line: SE's have an interest in not serving up multiple copies of the same material in their SERPs so that dictates that something - algo, filter, etc. - is needed to sort out the multiple copies.

I'd vote for tailoring the material a bit for the 2 sites.

If all you are looking for is type-in traffic then you can have all the duplicate domains you want.