Multiple Domains To Single Site

Do search engines penalize sites that submit multiple domains for one site?

[visca]

Hey everyone,

I seek clarification on the following matter...

BACKGROUND
My client would like to have multiple domain names all pointing to the same web site, and submit all of them to search engines in the hopes that some domains will rank better than others.

OVERVIEW

domain1.com
domain2.com
domain3.com
domain4.com
¦__________ ALL ALLOCATED TO 123.123.123.123

This giving the advantage of having a range of keyword rich domains feeding into site.

QUESTION
Do search engines penalize your site when you practice such a technique? If so, are there ways around this, and what is the penalty (delisting, lower ranking, etc)?

Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks

[edited by: Lisa at 8:31 pm (utc) on Dec. 10, 2002]
[edit reason] no specific domains please [/edit]

[korkus2000]

Duplicate content penalty. Don't do it. Do a site search and you will find lots of great info on 301 redirects and duplicate content.

[visca]

This would explain a problem on a previous project, where there were a bunch of unused domains and I linked them all to a new site to help build traffic. However the PRIMARY domain is ranked DISMALLY in search engines.

REPLY QUESTION
In that case, if a site has already done something like this and they have been penalized, what would be the method of undoing the damage?

Is this penalty applied indefinately or each time the spider re-crawls the net? If the duplicate content domains are taken offline or the content in them is changed to its own distinct content - would that correct the issue for the primary domain of the site?

EXAMPLE

domain1.com - primary
domain2.com - secondary linking to primary site
domain3.com - secondary linking to primary site
domain4.com - secondary linking to primary site

If site is penalized due to multiple links, if domains 2 through 4 are removed or obtain their own content, would the rank of domain1.com be returned to normal? And if so at what point? During a crawl, during a specified time interval? And how widely does such a policy vary across the different search engines?

Thanks!

[Crazy_Fool]

it's not a penalty as such, it's that ther is no benefit to web users to see 10 results with identical content so search engines won't list duplicate content. you'll find that in general, one domain will be listed normally, the others will be ignored. sometimes a search engine will list some pages under one domain and other pages under another domain - the split is not helpful.

for the site where you've already done this and the primary domain is ranked dismally, remove the other domains and make sure all inbound links point to the primary domain - you will need to search in the search engines for all the inbound links then contact the other webmasters to ask them to change their links. after 2 or 3 months you should find the primary domain will rank better than it does now.

you'll find a lot of discussion about duplicate content in the google forum [webmasterworld.com...]
make sure to read the google knowledge base and read back through old messages in the forums - everything you need to know has been asked and answered several times over!

[pleeker]

In that case, if a site has already done something like this and they have been penalized, what would be the method of undoing the damage?

Use 301 redirects on all the extra domains. That way, anyone typing in or trying to access one of the extra domains will get immediately redirected to your main domain. The days of getting multiple domains with the same exact content listed in the SEs are over (or will be soon).

And as Crazy_Fool suggested, read back through some not-so-old threads in the Google forum.

In fact, I started this thread [webmasterworld.com] a little while back, which should answer your question.