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Pointing (Parking) Domain Names To Main URL

         

WiseWebDude

3:19 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Question for some of you experts. I have searched until my fingers were blue, yet cannot find out exact info.

Say I have a site and I want to just add a parked domain onto that main URL like, say four of them. <Snip>

simply to enable people who might specifically type a phrase in to find our site. Does this hurt a site in search engines? Say you had a site that was 2/10 PR and you added it to your main site, what would search engines think? Do they consider that duplicate? OR, do they simply ignore the ADDED DOMAINS?

The URLs are NOT forwarded, etc., they are simply parked on the same server pointing to the main domain. What is the EXACT effect this would have? Thanks!

<Moderator Note: Please use Example.com for "pretend or hypothetical" domain situations. Example.com, Example.net, Example.org., Example.info. Each Example.TLD domain is an ICANN reserved domain. Check the WhoIs and you will see what I mean. Thank you.>

[edited by: Webwork at 3:49 pm (utc) on July 3, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

Terabytes

3:51 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I went thru this exact scenario...

If you are simply using the domain as a pointer to the exact same pages as your "normal" website you WILL need to setup a 301 redirect to the normal domain..

(IE they type newdomain.com and they get redirected to olddomain.com)

If you leave it the way it is...somewhere, the SE's will pickup on a link to the "other" domain name and index it...

it will see that there is another domain exactly like it...duplicate content...

(in my case the SE decided which domain appeared in the serps...G used the old domain...Y used the new domain...it was a mess)

So the answer is YES it appears as duplicate content....and the SE will decide which domain to use if you don't tell it which one to use via 301...

That help?

WiseWebDude

3:58 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Yes! Thanks! So, would need to use .htaccess? How do you 301 redirect from an addon domain? That's what I am stumped on...Thanks!

Terabytes

5:38 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



ok....here is what I use..

it's for an Apache webserver....

basicly: the first rule rewrites the regular domain.com to www.domain.com (important regardless of your issue)

The 2nd and 3rd line rewrites the other parked domain (in both the www and non-www forms to redirect to the regular domain name)

If you have multiple "parked" domains simply re-use the 2nd and 3rd lines adding new new domains..

(If anybody out there knows a better way to write this please let both of us know...)

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^otherdomain\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.otherdomain\.net
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you are running on IIS or something other than Apache, the syntax is similar, but you'll have to find someone else to get you that...

Tera

[edited by: Webwork at 5:53 pm (utc) on July 3, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

WiseWebDude

5:55 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



That is EXACTLY what I needed! You are my hero, LOL. Thanks a bunch. I've seen some stuff in other posts about this, but somehow this post enlightened me fully. I really appreciate you taking the time to post that.

I did have one site then that Google no longer shows because they thought it was duplicate, I am sure. When I rewrite as stated here, how long before re-inclusion takes place? Do you know?

Terabytes

6:15 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



lol....that's all I can say....really...

Many peopled are suffering with this issue...

the 301 issue is not fully corrected by G for example...they sorta get it...but it seems to get messed up in the algo...

so all I can say, is impliment the 301 redirect..keep it there forever.. watch the SERPS...

there will probably be a day or so where you will drop out, or be lost amongst the 12,000,000,000 pages..It's just a datacenter thing...you'll pop back...

you're doing the correct thing for now and the future...the rest is totally up to the SE's mercy...

Helps?

Tera

WiseWebDude

6:27 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Helps? No, it's invaluable. LOL. Thanks. It does help to talk about it, LOL. I have 6 sites, 2 of which are booming with 4 & 5 Page Ranks so for this to happen to this other one is irritating. (ps the site it happended to was NEW, thankfully) This is extremely important imformation to learn. I work for a site that has $1,000,000 a month in sales (not owned by me, sadly) but, if that would've happened to us we would be in real trouble. So now you know why I enjoy learning this. It is a life-saver not only for me, but for my employer as well.