Two domain names - one website?

[vladc77]

I'd like to find out if I will have any problems with SEO if I am having two domain names that point to one IP address. Something like mydomain.com and mydomain.net, both linked to the same content. It happened that I had to go through registering both domain names and now I am not sure how to use it correctly.

Any ideas are highly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[ptietze]

This question has come up a number of times before. It is possible that SE will crawl your site from both domain names and render a duplicate content penalty. One solution that has been offered is to do a 301 (permanent) redirect from one domain name to the other.

Try seaching on 301 reiirect in the site search feature of this web site.

[AjiNIMC]

I agree with ptietze, there is 99.9% that it will be considered as a duplicate content and both your sites get your penalized

Aji

[optimist]

I diasgree, I think the Search Engines are smarter than this and do a reverse IP lookup on the domains. I think there is no confusion by the SE's, they just consider the sites one and the same.

[vladc77]

Is that possible to know for sure? Where can we get the answer?

Also, I am not sure how to create the 301 redirect. Is anybody know the proper way of doing that?

Thank you again!

[optimist]

Well. I have done it before. SEs are smart enough to know the differencte between duplicate content and two domain names pointing to the same content.

Take for instance WebCrawler.com and McKinley.com. Do a backlinks check in Google and they report the same exact number and same exact links. Why? Because they both point to the same IP address and the same folder path on that IP.

As long as they point to the same exact root folder you should be fine. However, if you are pointing them two 2 different places on the same IP--then you will have a problem. You could also forward one-domain-name.com to the other-domain.com, this can be done by your registrar sometimes at an additional cost.

[claus]

This thread might help: Moving websites to a new central domain [webmasterworld.com]

[beakertrail]

many companies have multiple domains which all point to the same web site as a measure in brand protection.

am I to understand that because mycompany.com / mycompany.co.uk / mycompany.net all point to the same web site on the same web server there is a possibility of a penalty?

Surely by now Google (at least) has figured out that this is an essential part of the corporate Internet way of life?

Beaker

[ptietze]

Here are some threads from a search on "multiple domains".

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Duke_of_Url]

yup done that too, the group I did a site for insisted on registering both ****xx.co.uk and xxxxx.com, so I set both to point to the same content and common sense seems to have prevailed and the site sat ok in the SERPS, although to err on the side of caution I only ever plugged the .co.uk version in inbound link campaigns, submittals to SEs, and so on

DoU

[claus]

>> a possibility of a penalty?

No, no penalty, it's just that there are many ways you can mess these things up for yourself. Your site URL is your most important asset and you should really keep things nice and clean to make sure there is no doubt about what the real URL is. Search Engines prefer that one page has only one URL, and not all of them are good at handling these issues - Google is actually quite good, although certainly not perfect.

If you're telling Google that, say four domains are now permanently moved to the same website (a 301 redirect), then what is the right domain for that website? My best guess is that they will try to merge these domains into one, and the one with the most incoming links will win, but i'm not sure, and the Google help pages gives no information on which rules they use to decide this.

As for inbound links; if you have multiple domains, pick one and use that one only for inbound links. In my experience it will not hurt you to use alternative domains in inbound links a limited number of times.

/claus

[Shadows Papa]

This is a great question I never thought to ask. Early on, we realized that people were not really always looking for us using our "proper name". For example, our REAL name is
"The Store Name" but we found many people were dropping the "The" from our name, and just looking for "Store Name".
I found out when an advertiser called me and wanted us to list our store in their "yellow pages". She kept calling us "Store Name" even AFTER I corrected her.
Bottom line, I went right out and registered another domain so we have both "www.thestorename.com" and "www.storename.com"
I cannot say for SURE, but I can't see that having the two causes us problems. We only ever advertise or give out our full company name and full original domain name. I found, however, that teoma (sp) and one other search actually listed "www.storename.com" but never did show "www.thestorename.com" when I did a search using key words we strive for.
Our registered corporate name with the state is "The Store Name" as well, our lawyer said we needed to stick to using that in all ads, etc. for safety.
I have found in the logs that a few people actually do reach us using the shortened version of our name.
It all points to the EXACT same server, IP, directory on the server, files, etc. NO difference at all.
(business name changed to protect the innocent, and to keep from getting my fingers slapped by a moderator who believes that rules have purpose :-) )

Shadows Papa

[cindyt]

This issue was addressed at SES 2003 in San Jose and according to Google, the only safe way to really accomplish this is with a 301 redirect. Bruce Clay concurred and you can find more info on his website at: [bruceclay.com...]

[Shadows Papa]

guess I don't understand that - nor do I understand how or even WHY that should or would be considered "spam".

What it appears to be saying is that we'd have to pay for yet another server and have yet another site hosted, more than doubling our current costs! More DSN entries, another server involved, paying for parking more domain names, etc.

Yet another example of how the SEs leave the small folks behind, giving preference to the big rich folks who can afford to pay for the extra servers and hosting expenses.

Shadows Papa

[cindyt]

Good point ShadowsPapa. Guess it factors in to how important it is for one to have multiple domains.

Also, you don't need to host them on different servers. Only 2 domains need to be hosted total and they need to be on the same server in order to set up the redirect. Gary at BruceClay tech support is the pro at doing this...

[Shadows Papa]

Part of the issue is that not everone "owns" their server.
In our case, as it is with most small businesses, the site is hosted by a company with servers in another state. We can't touch the server other than to maintain our own site.
Other sites sit on the same servers. We have little say.

So, this deal about "simply change the hta file" or "simply make this change and restart the server" is fine if you have the bucks and own the hardware. We don't. (it seems that a lot of the advice given even in these forums is assuming that we own and can fully access all hardware - "simply edit this file, restart the service and it's set" Yeah, right. Tell our web host.)

All this means is that we can't possibly do half of what's said here - or by your expert. We can't afford to setup such complex redirects.
The best we can afford to do is create the site, pay for the two domains so that folks find us, and pray we aren't penalized for being small and without the money to own our own servers.

Shadows Papa

[beakertrail]

Good point and here is one possible answer - creating a 301 in ASP.

[jdhodges.com ]

It also shows how to create 301 redirects using IIS.

Hope this helps,

Beaker

[Shadows Papa]

Hey, beaker - that would be great but the page only shows how to do it in IIS, we don't have server access.
He states "here's the asp code to do it....." but there is no asp code on that page and I didn't find a link to any such code. It's like something is missing on his page....
Can you see the code on the page you reference from your PC and browser?

Wait - I tried it in Firebird and I can see the code! IE didn't show me.
Hmmmm, on other issue - our index page is not ASP, it's "htm" and we've left it that way because of the ranking issue! Didn't want to start all over again with a new page for them to find and index, so although most other pages are ASP, the INDEX is INDEX.HTM because it's got 5 years of history. I'm just afraid to change it because we're anywhere from #1 to #6 depending on the SE uses and the day of the week.

I'm still learning so open to comment!

Shadows Papa

[Shannon Moore]

This one frustrates me as setting up a 301 Redirect means that having the "other" domain is useless, except as a hedge against one's competitors registering it.

Folks say "Just set up a 301 Redirect" nonchalantly, when really it's saying, "Cut your losses and merge those two domains into one entity. Forget branding under both names."

That is a big deal to some, depending on the original intent when the "other" domain was originally registered. It's only "simple" when we're talking about typical corporate sites where they own the .com, .net, .org, etc. matching their trademarked name/brand, and only the .com site was ever intended as branded, marketed site.

[antirack]

I've got about 100 domain names (all related to the products I sell) and about half of them point to the same IP address. The others forwarded to my URL.

I am now about to re-organize my mess of domain names and I am still wondering how to do that best.

I normally only use our main domain name. The 99 other names are mispellings of my main-domain, or the name of a popular product I sell or similar. There is good traffic thru the domains, and I'd like to keep it that way.

What I really would like to know is if that is actually hurting the PR of my main site, and if I should use 301 in the future now?

(updated: I meant 301 but said 302, sorry).

[edited by: antirack at 10:22 am (utc) on Dec. 29, 2003]

[yowza]

I have a similar question about multiple domain names.

I have a site with lot of widget varieties. For ease we'll say I have blue widgets, green widgets, and yellow widgets.

My site's domain name is widgets.com. I also own yellowwidgets.com and blue widgets.com.

If I set it up so that each domain name does a 301 redirect to a corresponding page, not index.htm, will this be a problem?

Examples: widget.com goes to the home page
yellowwidgets.com goes to widgets.com/yellow.htm
bluewidgets.com goes to widgets.com/blue.htm

Will this cause search engines to think I have duplicate content?

Thanks

[cleverett]

One of my competitors shows up with a #1 and #3 result with exactly identical content on to different site names.

Another competitor shows up at #5 and #10, again with identical content.

By any definition of the term, S-P-A-M big time. How can that possibly be good search results?

[Old Welsh Guy]

Hi Guys,

I can tell you this as FACT with regard Google.

Things can flow along for months, in the case of one of our customers 22 months having 2 domain names pointing to the same folder on the server.

Then Google noticed duplicate content, and split the pages so that half were under one domain, and the other half another. This was not a freak incident, I checked and it hapened to a few people.

With half the pages missing, page rank was being transferred all over the shp, and the index file plummeted from #1 or 2 down to 31 (which just as well be 3001).

I patched it right away, put a redirect and a manual we have moved link page for the secondary domain, and it took 6 weeks to correct. The site is now back at its previous ranking.

So speculate as much as you like, what I have posted is FACT. (sorry)

Cheers

OWG

[assasin]

having 2 domain names pointing to the same folder on the server

Were these two different urls or simply two different top level domains?

I think there's a big difference between how an S.E will look at

www.myshop.com and www.myshop.net or indeed www.myshop.com and myshop.com

versus:

www.myshop.com and www.the-shop-which-belongs-to-me.net

At least there should be!

My first post by the way. Hello all!

[antirack]

In my opinion this is all very blurry and there is need for some clear guidelines from Google and co.

If they penalize for using different domains with same content, they should at least let the people know why and how. I am not saying that they should open up their company secrets, but to me it seems that nearly everybody is using multiple domains nowadays and therefore affected.

Almost all of the businesses I know online have multiple domain names (companyname.com, .net, .org, .tv, .info, .whatever, product1.com, product2.com etc...). It already starts at the domain registrar when you register company-name.com and it suggests you to take plenty of other domains too in order to secure them (with -, without -, .org, net etc).

If I am not wrong there are some people working for Google here at the forums, maybe they are interested in posting a comment or pointing us to the official guidelines/statements.

[Old Welsh Guy]

IMO it is all just a case of logic.

What possible reason would Google or any other SE have for allowing Identical content in? At ODP, Joe Ant, Zeal and Skaffe we are clearly told that duplicate content is not allowed.

Having multiple domains is not a problem; it is what is done that causes problems. You can have 20 domains, pointing to one set of content, and it will not create any problems if 19 of them are using a 301 re-direct.

Google is not penalising web owners for having duplicate content, it is just removing the duplication, after all, what is there of benefit to them having identical pages stored in different places?

If you must have duplicate content, then use robot.txt to block the spiders from the duplicate content to prevent them from picking it up.