Multiple domain names

Duplicate content

[gtate]

I've been told that if you have more than one domain name, i.e. a .com and a .co.uk, and point one at the other, this can be seen as duplicate content by the search engines unless you host the secondary domain separately and use 301 redirect. Anyone know if this is true?

[jtbell]

You do not have to host the secondary domain separately, as far as I know. The 301 redirect is all you need.

[pmkpmk]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, gtate!

It's not important if the duplicate content is hosted on the same server or a different server. If it's duplicate, it's duplicate. End of discussion.

Best practice is to decide for ONE domain to be the main address (in case of .co.uk and .com I would opt for the .com if your business is international), and to set up "permanent redirects" (often called 301 redirects) from the additional domains (often called "vanity domains"). This makes sure you host only ONE copy of the content, which will avoid penalization by the search engines, but still allows for type-in traffic.

[Marketing Guy]

Some hosts might require you to buy a seperate hosting package in order to implement the 301 redirect - mine did that for ages, but finally updated the control panel to allow you to manage redirects for all the domains on the account.

If your host charges you to setup redirects (anything more than a minimal admin charge), then just find somewhere you can park your domains and setup the 301's yourself.

[g1smd]

Point all the domains to the one server, and put all of the redirects in a single .htaccess file on that server.