Forum Moderators: open
(links to .com)
www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=link%3Awww.example.com
(links to .ca)
www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link%3Awww.example.qc.ca
The strangest thing is that if you go to the pages that point to the .ca (according to google) and look the source of the page you will notice that this page is in fact pointing to the www.example.com and not to www.example.qc.ca!
Now my question is how do google apply this. Do they give the same ranking and links to any .com .ca that share the same name? I don't think so. But maybe if you have the exact same content then they give you the same ranking and links? Do some one understand how does this works?
[edited by: ciml at 2:38 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2002]
[edit reason] Generalised Domains [/edit]
If you purchase multiple domains and point them all to the same server, then you won't have a problem. Only when you have multiple domains pointed to different servers - but with substantially identical site and page content - will you have a problem, since the main reason to do this is to "cheat" in order to get multiple listings in the search engine results.
As to why the PR is aggregated on the sites you mention, Google knows the different domains point to the same site, because they use the IP address obtained from DNS - and possibly - the information in the domain name registration record. They then aggregate the PR and incoming links of the various domains to avoid granting multiple listings to what is, in fact, one site.
That is my opinion based on my experience, yours may differ.
Jim
agree totlaly with jdMorgan.
In addition, if you are local to Canada (or not), the .ca extension will give you a boost in ranked position in all Canadian regional engines Google, Lycos, Altavista and so on.
Great to see another fellow Candian here!
Rod (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
When the URLs are merged, links to www.example.com and www.example.qc.ca are both treated as links to www.example.qc.ca
Usually, the URL with the best links to it will be the one listed.
If this is the case, my PR will increase for both sites and every body will be happy.
Please watch the details here to make sure you understand what I said... PR is by page, not by site.
This PR merging will work if you have multiple domain names pointed to the same site. You will have only one site, and so each page of that site will have the PR from every incoming link that can be used to reach it, regardless of domain name. There is no PR advantage to having the multiple domain names - The only advantage is the added appeal of having the national Top-Level Domain (.ca) for your Canadian visitors, and the .com TLD for everyone else.
Jim
If I'm reading you correctly then, there is no disadvantage to having two domain names pointing to the same site on the same server. You don't lose PR because some have linked to wombat.ca and others have linked to wombat.com.
Is this true if something other than the TLD differs, if for example, free-wombats-for-kids.com pointed to the same site as wombats.com?
It seems to be true, this month - or last month - anyway. Could change tomorrow...
The "honest" thing to do is to use a server 301 permanent redirect to update the address bar to show that the URL has been redirected to your "standard" domain. That's what I do, since we registered both the .org and .com TLDs. (We are a .org, but registered the .com because a lot of people think that "all URLs end with .com")
Using that method, I have not had any trouble. I cannot vouch for variations.
It would also seem to me that search engine designers, being smart people, would realize that any "points" awarded for having a keyword in the domain name would need to be discounted (or diluted) because of the multiple domain names. Other than correcting the "user-confusion-factor" cited above, the keyword-in-domain ploy is the only technical (as opposed to marketing-psychological) advantage I can think of to having multiple domains leading to the same content, and of course, your site would have fewer incoming links containing any given keyword if you had multiple domains, only some of which contained that keyword. I tried some "tricks" many years ago and got whacked, so I quit. As a result, I'm no expert in tricky SEO these days, so just take that as my opinion and nothing more. I get good search placement because of quality content and on-topic incoming links. As a general rule, if you try to mislead the user, you'll get whacked, now or sometime in the future.
Given the above, I'm doing my part to reduce Web-clutter and save money on domain registrations by using only the .org and .com domains, and no more.
Jim
If the content changes between Googlebot visits, then the two pages may not be merged. Then you get two listings, neither with the good ranking that the merged listing could get.
Jim
These things can change (i.e. similarity thresholds, etc.) but just having the date and time on the page has been enough to get the multiple URLs treated as different pages in Google.
