Multiple sites showing the same backlinks

and same Google directory category

[steveb]

url1.com has 850 backlinks, PR6 and has its Google Directory category lit up (and is in fact in that dmoz/google directory category)

url2.com shows the exact same 850 backlinks, same PR6 and Google Directory category

url3.com and url4.com show the exact same 850 backlinks, same PR6 and Google Directory category

url2, url3 and url4 do NOT mirror the content of url1. They do mirror each other though -- but they do not have framed redirects or anything like that. The HTML is unique.

How the heck can this happen?

Can this happen if all these sites are housed on somebody's personal server?

There is no way to tell that these PR6 sites are actually phantoms, without clicking through the backlinks or checking the Google Directory to see that it isn't them that is listed but actually url1.

Careful if a PR6, 850 backlink, in the directory site wants to trade links with you... it might not actually exist.

[DaveN]

it sounds like they are point the the other URLS to URLS in the DNS and google has picked the fact that they all are the same same site do they all rank in the search engines or just URL1?

I have seen sitea.co.uk and sitea.com both owner and pointing to the same space but only one will rank but both will show the same back links.

DaveN

[steveb]

They all rank in the search results, although url1 ranks MUCH better than the others.