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I run a webzine and have 5 different domain names that are common variations/miss-spellings of the main URL.
Currently all of them share the same IP address and point to the same directory on the server.
We are movning to a new server and I have the chance to give each domain name its own seperate IP address, and either put a doorway page for each name in a seperate directory (linking to the main site), or better still, configure it so that each different IP goes to the same directory on the server.
Just wondering; would either option trick the search engines into thinking that there are 5 similar webzines on the net (as they have seperate IPs) and thus give us 4 more chances to attract new readers from the search engines to our site..?
Welcome to Webmasterworld and thanks for posting.
>>would either option trick the search engines into thinking that there are 5 similar webzines on the net (as they have seperate IPs).
I don't think you're going to trick the SE's with this strategy. What I would suggest is make each different domain have enough unique content to stand on it's own merits. Cross link the domains and you should be on track to accomplishing what you want with the 5 domains.
Search engines are pretty good about filtering out duplicate content, so unique content rich and keyword rich domains pointing to your main webzine is necessary if you want to use all 5 domains as "doorway domains".
Penalties for duplicate content don't always involve kicking out one or both of the pages in question. The difference in rankings between the two probably doesn't have anything to do with the URL's. Quite often you will find that the duplicate page will simply get buried in the listings. Eliminating one of the dupes will usually result in the remaining page climbing a bit.
I would go with your 1st suggestion or take it a stage further as eljefe3 suggested. Build some unique content and link to you main domain. Don't forget to use your important keywords in the links.
When you register a domain name, you firstly use a DNS (Domain Nameserver) to assign that domain to an IP address.
Secondly the Webserver on the machine with that IP address is configured to map this domain to a specific directory on that machine.
Absolute is talking about configuring the webserver so that each of the domains is mapped to the same directory. This will mean that each domain will return the same content.
eg. www.domain1.com will have identical content to www.domain2.com .
Hope this answers your question.
