Google Penalties

Redirects from multiple domains

[yowza]

I have a site with lot of widget varieties. For ease we'll say I have blue widgets, green widgets, and yellow widgets.

My site's domain name is widgets.com. I also own yellowwidgets.com and bluewidgets.com.

If I set it up so that each domain name does a redirect to its corresponding page, not index.htm, will this be a problem?

Examples: widgets.com goes to the home page
yellowwidgets.com goes to widgets.com/yellow.htm
bluewidgets.com goes to widgets.com/blue.htm

Will this cause search engines to think I have duplicate content?

The reason I ask is that I created a web site for a client.

The client then bought more domain names and redirected those domain names to deeper pages with content that corresponds to the domain name.

Thanks in advance!

[DVDBurning]

I doubt that this would cause a problem. This would not be a deceptive redirect, which is against Google's Terms of Service.

[antrat]

Hi yowza, I would suggest your client save his money and simply name the pages appropriately, e.g [wwidget.com...] etc I can only see disadvantages with the current method.

[yowza]

I forgot to mention that these forwarded domains are using 302 redirects.

Also, I noticed that google has added the redirected names as backlinks to the main site. The indexed title and description match the pages that they are redirected to.

Will this be considered duplicate content?

Thanks?

[uncle_bob]

302 redirects are temporary redirections.

Try using 301 redirects which are permanent redirections. Google should work better then.

[yowza]

I would like 301's but Network Solutions doesn't forward their domains with anything but 302's.

[rogue]

how about each domain (4) redirected to index.htm? Also each domain is cross linked to each of the other domains and all point to index.htm

[rfgdxm1]

>I would like 301's but Network Solutions doesn't forward their domains with anything but 302's.

Then get a better registrar.

[yowza]

rfgdxm1

Thanks for your insightful response.

However, as I said, my client chose the registrar and I have to work with the registrar that my client wants.

What I'm looking for is to know whether I will have a problem with the current setup or not.

Thanks.

[antrat]

yowza, why not do as I suggested in message 3? If nothing else, it save your client $$ and eliminates any *possible* risk of Google's wrath.

[tribal]

I understand the wish of having nice domain names for e.g. blue widgets. It's kind of a service to have a nice typ-in domain, imo. If you would be searching for superwidgets, wouldn't you try superwidgets.com before searching for it?

You could always do a Javascript redirect, as G can't execute that there would be zero risk. The only problem is clients would need JS enabled in their browser, but you can catch that by using the <NOSCRIPT> tag showing a deeplink to the appropriate section in your site.

[antrat]

I understand the wish of having nice domain names for e.g. blue widgets. It's kind of a service to have a nice typ-in domain, imo.

Yes agree, but there is little adavantage and a real risk of duplicate content when owing more than one domain for the same site. It also costs to keep them registered. I would have a short easy to spell main domain (matching product or service if possible) and then name all pages appropriatley, e.g. www.keyword.com/keyowrd1-keyword2.htm etc

If you would be searching for superwidgets, wouldn't you try superwidgets.com before searching for it?

Honestly no! I would only do that when/if I knew such a domain existed, otherwise it's straight to Google.

[tribal]

This would ofcourse be dependant on the market, but in most cases I can come up with, having several domains would be helpfull. The type-in thing is personal, but lots of people try it before moving to a search engine.

About the risk, well, if there is no content on the site, how can there be duplicate content? A 301 redirect is at no risk at all, and if that is not possible, a JS redirect is not detectable, and if so, who cares if that domain does not show up in the results? It's not there for SE's, but for clients.

I would find it perfectly acceptable if I would type in www.bluewidgets.com and see the browser get redirected to www.widgets.com/blue/. Not only would it take out the possibility for competition to register the domain, it would also direct people right away to the sub-category of the main site.

And be honest: how much do a couple of domains cost? We're talking about peanuts here :)

[europeforvisitors]

If I set it up so that each domain name does a redirect to its corresponding page, not index.htm, will this be a problem?

Examples: widgets.com goes to the home page
yellowwidgets.com goes to widgets.com/yellow.htm
bluewidgets.com goes to widgets.com/blue.htm

My site was set up in a way that was similar to this, i.e.:

widgets.com = widgets.com/index.html
yellowwidgets.com = widgets.com/yellow/index.html
bluewidgets.com = widgets.com/blue/index.html

This worked fine for two years, but after the Florida update, the secondary (yellow and blue) index.html pages disappeared from the Google index for their most important search keyphrases.

I then changed my internal links to point to the page URLs rather than to the secondary domains, and the secondary index.html pages are showing up again for their most important keyphrases (with one being in the #1 spot).

So: If my experience is any guide, redirecting from bluewidgets.com to a page under widgets.com won't cause a problem. However, using internal links to bluewidgets.com (instead of to the page's relative URL under your main domain) could be risky, no matter how innocent your intentions might be.

[More Traffic Please]

If I have a pointer domain that I only use in print ads and I could care less how it ranks, and all my incomming links point only to my main domain, is there any difference if I use a 301 or 302 redirect?

[yowza]

Since the domain forwarding service that has to be used only provides 302 redirects I came up with what I think is a solution. The Apache Moderator said he does this too.

I set the domain forwarding to point to my IP address. I then did a mod_rewrite 301 from my IP address to the appropriate page.

Thus,
In NetSol, I forward all traffic from bluewidgets.com to htt*p://233.32.233.22/bluewidgets.htm. I then did a mod_rewrite 301 so that htt*p://233.32.233.22/bluewidgets.com redirects to htt*p://widgets.com/bluewidgets.htm

It forwards it to the correct page. All I'm hoping to do is catch the type in traffic without being penalized by search engines. I'll let you know if I get penalized.