Two domains for 1 site, one has higher page rank

[allxtt]

Hi, not seen an answer to this so here goes. My client has two domains attached to his web space. Domain A has a google PR of 3 and the secondary Domain B has a PR of 4. From what reasearch I have done I really can't see why the secondary would have a higher PR. Obviously the second domain has been picked up on various search engines. I have recently worked on a link campaign for Domain A but yet to see the results.

I would really like to only have the primary domain A attached to the site and build up a higher PR for that domain. Should I remove domain B from my server, or forward it with dns settings etc etc.

I am aware that hosting multiple domains for one site is not recommended, especially with Google, but my client has had both in use for years and previous to my hosting developing his site.

Any advice appreciated.

James Noon

[pbaddock]

Well firstly, PR as displayed on the toolbar is updated infrequently (~quarterly) with the next update due soon (next few weeks sometime).....so if you're referring to toolbar displayed PageRank, then don't fret. Having said that, behind the scenes google updates PageRank more often, and really the actual rank that your listing appears in the SERPs is the true measure of SEO success.

A higher pagerank can be granted based on a range of factors and not just in bound links ie relevance of on-page factors to the keywords in question, words used in the anchor text of inbound links, number of outbound links on pages containing the inbound links pointing to your site, and others. Best to just be tenacious - continue onsite optimation, link building, and most importantly building up the number and quality of pages of content on each site - the pagerank side of things will take care of itself over time.

Also if DomainA and DomainB are actually pointing to the same site, and you're saying that they have been independantly indexed, then yes, IMHO - I'd be picking one, and redirecting via a 301 redirect to the other so you don't get into any issues with duplicate / identical content on 2 indexed domains. (best to keep the PR4 domain to start with unless the other domain is a more appropriate / targetted name). I also have a client with 2 domains who've been doing it for years - but they found one always seemed to rank over the other. After redirecting, while the redirected domain stopped ranking and getting indexed, things got simpler from an seo / focus / effort point of view in terms of link building, anchor text focus - and overall resulted in a better ranking of the main domain.