Domain names

I've got LOTS

[Svengalie]

I must have short of 100 domain names, am I going to be penalised by google if I point all these domains to a single set of content (all virtually mapped to the same domain)

I assume the answer is no, if you do it the right way?

[Marcia]

>>point all these domains to a single set of content (all virtually mapped to the same domain)

What does that do?

[mcavic]

Use 301 redirects. That way, Google will only index the destination site, and not all the duplicate domains. Thus, no penalty.

Inktomi might index some of the duplicates, though.

[Marcia]

I'm serious asking, I'd really like to know. I've never figured out why lots of domain names for one site.

[plasma]

I'm serious asking, I'd really like to know. I've never figured out why lots of domain names for one site.

with dash, without dash, frequent typos (and to protect from typo squatters)

[mcavic]

Someone who owns 100 extra domain names is probably in the business of selling them.

Aside from that, protecting against squatters is the best reason I can think of.

[PatrickDeese]

I would assume - knowing nothing about this case - that perhaps he owns common mispellings of his own domain name, or variations on keywords, or variations on competitor domains.

I get tons of referrals for searches like:

[google.com...]

[edited by: PatrickDeese at 5:03 pm (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]

[rfgdxm1]

>I would assume - knowing nothing about this case - that perhaps he owns common mispellings of his own domain name, or variations on keywords, or variations on competitor domains.

If that is what he is doing, then he should be using redirects on all of those to keep Google happy.

[Marcia]

301, not 302.

[Gus_R]

Permanent redirected pages stay in google index?

[Marcia]

They stay in if they're permanent, but imho it can mess up backlinks a bit.

[novice]

Goggle uses 200 url forwarding to forward www.guugle.org.

[cjtripnewton]

"Permanent redirected pages stay in google index?"

No, the redirected pages go away, but the pages that the redirected pages are redirecting to will stay in the index.

99 urls 301 redirected to one url will result in one url being indexed by Google.

Unfortunately, Alltheweb, Teoma, and Inktomi will pick up several of the 99, and that may eventually lead to difficulty.

[Craig_F]

> imho it can mess up backlinks a bit.

Can you elaborate? I 301'd a bunch of pages back in april and my PR dropped by 1, and now only my home page appears to be indexed (site has 400+ pages).

[Marcia]

There's a 301 redirected second URL that was put on over a year ago that is, as we speak, still showing up right now. I just double-checked again. With the same backlinks as the domain name it's pointing to.

The links to both are combined and the site just took a big time hit altogether. Other reasons too, but mainly because the links are a mess. I've had nothing to do with that site's linking but I will now.

That's a little different case because there was another site using that domain before, but there was a serious problem when it was first done, and that other domain is still showing up same as the real one.

Added after:
Craig, were they just moved and 301'd on your own site?

[cjtripnewton]

"There's a 301 redirected second URL that was put on over a year ago that is, as we speak, still showing up right now."

Marcia, if you have pages from a 301'd url showing up on Google, are they specific file names that don't exist on the new site?

I.e., did you 301 [oldurl.com...] to [newurl.com...] but miss redirecting [oldurl.com...] and don't have a corresponding [newurl.com...]

Or, are you saying you have the oldurl.com files showing up on something other than Google?

Alltheweb, Teoma, and Inktomi don't respond to 301's the way Google does. For Alltheweb, Teoma, and Inktomi, your best bet is to hard code the full url into every link on the site, replacing <a href="../file3.html"> with <a href="http://www.newurl.com/file3.html"> for every intersite link.

After a year or so, Alltheweb, Teoma, and Inktomi will get the message and gradually remove oldurl.com from their databases. Even that method isn't 100% though. After about 6 months, the best bet is to 404 the oldurl.com site so that Alltheweb, Teoma, and Inktomi will kill the thing if you really don't want it around. I have a url that is 8 years old now and still occassionaly gets reindexed because of old links on college sites that are impossible to update. At least by coding in full url links, you can limit the indexing to the pages which have inbound links.

[Morgan]

There are a lot of reasons to use many domains pointed at one site. The most useful is for tracking offline advertising from different sources without using subdomains or directories. So an ad in one magazine would direct people to source1.com, another would be source2.com and you can see the results tracked individually and not make your users type more than necessary.

[cjtripnewton]

Morgan, as we've all seen over and over, many people who see your ads are going to type them into a search engine instead of in the address bar on their browser, so it's best to make sure that whatever url you're advertising is well-indexed by the search engines.

[mcavic]

many people who see your ads are going to type them into a search engine instead of in the address bar on their browser

That's true. I wouldn't say a lot of people do that, but certainly some.

[steve_3231]

We have a main site and have a couple of other domain names with keyword type names (keyword1-keyword2.com) parked/pointed to our main site. Will this make google unhappy? Should we submit each new parked domain name to google?

Thanks,
Steve

[hazardtomyself]

cjtripnewton and mcavic,
In my experience with Internet surfers, and to my surprise, most people that I have supervised do type what they are looking for into the *search* bar - even if they know the URL. I always ask why they don't type the url into the browser "address bar" and the consistent answer is they didn't know they could.

Just my experience. Good point regarding making sure the advertised URL is indeed indexed.