I have a website with two domain names (a .com and a .co.nz). My hosting company has 'parked' both on the same hosting account.
This means that if someone goes to www.site.com or www.site.co.nz the same site is displayed, even though the address in the address bar remains different.
Going to a sub-page has the same effect. For example, if I go to www.site.com and click on "links" it takes me to www.site.com/links.html.
If I go to www.site.co.nz and click on "links" it takes me to www.site.co.nz/links.html.
So basically from a user's perspective, there is no redirecting, it's just as if there are two completely identical sites only with different domain names.
The problem is that this site is ranking very very well in Yahoo! and MSN search (oddly under both domain names), but barely features in Google at all. I have submitted ONLY the .co.nz URL to Google for registration (as I have done with all the others).
I wonder, does Google think I'm trying to trick it with the two domain names and is therefore penalising me?
I'm definitely not trying to trick it, and have consciously chosen to only register the .co.nz with each search engine.
My site also has a Google Site Search incorporated, and this is also set to search the .co.nz site.
There's nothing else unusual on the site, it's all just simple HTML. There is extensive content (250 - 500 words per page), none of it controversial - it is a backpacker tourism site for my hometown. I have other sites and have never had this problem with them.
Can anyone please advise if Google is perhaps penalising me for my domain name setup?
What is your intention with having 2 identical sites with different domain names, anyway?
The normal practice is to use a permanent redirect from one to the other to avoid such duplicate penalties.
So that's how we ended up here. I'll contact them and ask to setup the .com to redirect instead, even if it is a bit of a mission.
Thanks agian.
