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Domain Forwarding .com to .org

Best way to handle this

chersey

12:37 pm on Mar 4, 2010 (gmt 0)

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joined:Mar 4, 2010
posts: 1
votes: 0

I have 2 domains. One is a .org and the other is a .com - both with the same name. The .org is hosted on GoDaddy and has all of my content. The .com is not set up with any hosting at all but it is forwarded (through GoDaddy) with masking turned on, to the .org domain.

My site currently is ranked very high on Google however I have a lot of inbound links pointing to .com. (am I getting credit for these on the .org?)

My question...what is the best practice for this type of situation. Should I leave it alone? Should I buy hosting for the .com and duplicate content? Should I buy hosting for .com and transfer everything there? I want to make sure I am doing this the correct way but I also don't want to jeopardize my good results on the search engines.

I realize I should have set up the .com as the only site but the domain name was not available when this was first set up.

phranque

3:33 am on Mar 6, 2010 (gmt 0)

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phranque is a WebmasterWorld Top Contributor of All Time

joined:Aug 10, 2004
posts:11235
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welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], chersey!

you should use a 301 response to redirect the .com to the .org to retain the maximum link equity.
make sure the forwarding is done this way.
don't duplicate the content on another domain.

deciding to switch from the .org to the .com is another possibility but there are many factors involved there, such as domain age, inbound links to one domain vs the other, type of web site, etc.
if you are about to "go big" it's worth considering the move to .com.