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www.widget.com has a home page and many subfolders and pages. All the hobby contents is within its own subfolder: www.hobby.com/sparetime/, which really is a full site of its own. Naturally some hobby visitors will, in good faith, type as address www.hobby.com, and will then be surprised to find themselves served widget's home page.
This is not a big problem (the opposite way would be worse), and I can handle it by clearly publishing "www.hobby.com/sparetime/" or a similar guidance on the top of widget's home page. Now the question is, should such a guidance preferrably be in the form of a clickable link, or just the text of the address (no hyperlink)?
I would not ask this if there were no Google. Now I cannot figure out myself how this twin site's total amount of PageRank will be affected if there is a single link on widget's home page to www.hobby.com/sparetime/ or if there is just the plain text of the same address. (Or will the bot "read" such an address?) Perhaps only the distribution will change as the combined total amount of PR will not be altered? (I am not talking about the Toolbar PR value for a single page.) There is no upwards link from sparetime. Both sites have their own external inbound links.
I don't really know about the tech of it, but it sounds a bit risky.
Why don't you find a different host for the hobby site? Spend a few dollars extra a month. It's not a good setup for your users or the SE's.
make the second url a website and point it at a different area, using a completely re-engineered concept of your site, assuming that its high in the SERP's if not, then use it re-address the downfalls with your other site regarding rank.
host should be able to map it properly for minimal cost. One of my hosts charges $10 one time fee, the other $1 per month.
This seems to me a fine solution. Some hosts allow a few domain pointing, to any directory on the site, for a nominal fee as stated above.
Perhaps only the distribution will change as the combined total amount of PR will not be altered?
Yes.
If SE's combine the sites it should in theory result in a larger amount of total PR because the number of pages increases considerably in the single site.
No.
"I have two domains, www.widget.com and www.hobby.com. Both point to the same URL on widget's server space. The contents of hobby is of no interest to the visitors of widget, and v.v., but there is no technical reason for double web hosting and costs."
I'm not getting the problem. The part that puzzles me is that you say you have two domains, but they point to the same URL. WHY?
I have what may be a similar situation. Main site mysite.com. THe other domain, otherdomain.com points to mysite.com/otherdomain.
You make sure you never use mysite.com/otherdomain references anywhere, just use otherdomain.com
Traffic has been increasing for both domains over 5-6 years, so it doesn't appear to be a problem.
As for hosts, since hosting these days is international, you aren't limited to where you are, Europe. If you can't get the features you need, and there's some business reason to spend a few bucks, then go for it. Hosting fees for low load sites are peanuts these days.
It seems to me like you are trying to bandaid something without solving the real problem, and no matter what redirect methods you use, you can't know what google or another search engine will do tomorrow or the next with non standard stuff.
Sometimes it's necessary to kludge something (I had to do it myself recently with a new content manager, redirects, etc), but I think it's bad policy to intend to leave it that way. Particularly if you are using the site for business or revenue, and are serious about it.
In other words, don't RELY on redirect solutions or other awkward solutions as a long term solution.
"You can't know what google or another search engine will do tomorrow or the next with non standard stuff."
You are indeed right, rbacal. And one day even the solution with otherdomain.com pointing to mysite.com/otherdomain/ could be a no-no. It is a "Google Dance" where Google sets the pace. *Sigh*
Can you say "duplicate page penalty"? With potentially, www.hobby.com/sparetime being thrown out in favor of www.widget.com/sparetime. (Worst case scenario but not impossible.)
There's been talk recently that Google picks up URL's sent back by the toolbar. In fact, Google says explicitly, that an URL is not safe from spidering just because it has no links to it.
I think your setup COULD work, search-engine-wise, but only if you put a 301 redirect on any
www.widget.com/sparetime/somepage
to
www.hobby.com/sparetime/somepage
and the other way around. (www.hobby.com/yourwidgetpage to www.widget.com/yourwidgetpage)
You can put a "404 Not Found" on the default page of www.hobby.com to make sure no "hobby" visitors sees the "widget" page.
The steps above require some basic programming (querying HTTP_HOST and creating 301/404's based on that). If you are on a Windows server, I can post a solution here.
****
The above is the second-best solution to having your host do it and doing a 301 redirect from the "subdirectory-hobby" site to the new "rootdirectory-hobby" site. You would avoid the small PR loss of having the hobby site in a subdirectory.
If you're doing what I think you're doing, which is to give a directory the name of a domain, don't do it. I've had to deal with a site that did this, and I can tell you that the mess with inbound links and PageRank this kind of thing can create is quite unbelievable.
Can you say "duplicate page penalty"?
Or, if your setup will result in the same page being displayed under different urls (web "addresses" as seen in the address bar), don't do it.
At best, one url or the other will drop out of the index, only you won't have control over which one. And again, you're going to create linking problems that are going to haunt you.
"If you're doing what I think you're doing, which is to give a directory the name of a domain, don't do it. I've had to deal with a site that did this, and I can tell you that the mess with inbound links and PageRank this kind of thing can create is quite unbelievable."
That's probably good general advice. However, I've been doing exactly the above for over 5 years, with no apparent problems. I did it that way because it was the only solution available at that particular time.
Since the pages do so well (from both domains) in the search engines, I've left it that way.
Don't give up just yet. You don't need separate hosting plans and especially, not separate IPs. (IMO.)
I have several sites on the same hosting plan, with no problem. I use subdirectories as well to keep them separate. Works flawlessly and no problem with Google.
It's essential to ensure that no URL confusion can take place between the domains. Also, I did not interlink anything.
I'm sure a mod_rewrite expert can create the rules you need in a matter of minutes.
I don't think anyone was asking you to get separate IPs. Separate domain names is what they mean, I think. Somone clarify pls...
