2 url's pointing to the same site

[mojo]

or more, what are your thoughts?

I have seen one site, that I am in competition with, and used ot co own, that has several URL's purchased, all pointing to the same site. however, thesite is so screwed up on a regular basis, that they lose what traffic they do see simply due to functionality once the site is visisted. This site is ranked pretty high on search engines under some good keywords with many of these url's

What I am getting to is the possibilty of promoting my second URL for my site. What are the general thoughts? should it not do it, or does it really matter? I have heard in the past that places like google look down on that and it ulimately hurts you or possibly gets you kicked off.

[mojo]

in case that didnt make sense, what i am referring to is submitting a second URL to search engines, that actually points to the same site.

[tekkitan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo in case that didnt make sense, what i am referring to is submitting a second URL to search engines, that actually points to the same site.

i heard a rumor that search engines dont like this, unless it's a proper redirect, otherwise i think it might consider it a clone, and ban you from rankings. not sure on that one though.

[mojo]

I wish there was some kind of actual documentation of all these things that were set in stone somewhere. There are so many rumors flying around that you really dont know aht is true or not.

[tekkitan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo I wish there was some kind of actual documentation of all these things that were set in stone somewhere. There are so many rumors flying around that you really dont know aht is true or not.

yeah, even if it's a rumor though, i myself wouldnt go near it just to be safe.

[gilbert]

I don't think sites should get kicked off search engines for that. Its hard to proove. What if you purposely submitted redirects and clones to your competitions website and reported them to the search engine after? There needs to be some sort of proof

[quentin]

let's say you have 2 urls pointing to the same site.

1) Either all inbound links point to the same url (nobody knows about the other one). In that case the benefits of having another one is null.

2) Or some inbound links go to one url, and some to the other one. In that case, it would be better if all the links pointed to the same one, because it's better to have one very well ranked page than two ranked less well.


Conclusion: there is no actual benefit in having several urls pointing to the same site.
The only benefits you may get are if one of the extra urls gets a lot of type-ins, but if you had such a domain you would not ask about what to do with it, or if you buy an expired domain that has remaining links from its previous history that, if they don't bring benefit to your home page directly, will help by channelling some PR to your site.

Just buying a new url and have it point to an existing site is worthless. Can you imagine how easy it would be to get bonus if one just had to buy a couple domains ?

Concentrate on content, and inbound links.

[2thumbsup]

Many big sites have extra domains that point to the regular site for mispellings.

yaho.com is open, I think I might buy it .

*patent pending*

[Scribbller]

MAke sure you have it as permenant redirect because alot of sites got banned from google because of improper redirects.

[Jill]

I own all three TLD of my main site. (parentsworld.com, .org & .net) and they all bring you to the same site. No penalty from the search engines at all.

[quentin]

I really doubt anybody got banned from google for "improper" redirects.
Imagine how easy that would be ?
1) Buy dummy domain.
2) Do an improper redirect to competitor site.
3) wait for competitor being banned.

Nah, there's no such thing. no benefits apart from type-ins but no penalty either.

[baloki]

Quote:

I own all three TLD of my main site. (parentsworld.com, .org & .net) and they all bring you to the same site. No penalty from the search engines at all.

I do the same sort of thing, but I always give out the same one so as to try and keep my links to my site pritty even

[T2DMan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by quentin I really doubt anybody got banned from google for "improper" redirects. Imagine how easy that would be ? 1) Buy dummy domain. 2) Do an improper redirect to competitor site. 3) wait for competitor being banned. Nah, there's no such thing. no benefits apart from type-ins but no penalty either.

Sorry - totally disagree! - Several clients have had their site traffic destroyed by url's containing 302 temporary redirects being listed with their home pages content. It doesn't happen to every 302 redirect, but do a Google for 302 redirects and you will find lots of comment about it.

Unfortunately, it is possible to do improper redirects to competitors websites, but given that Google seems to take a random approach to it, you can't be gauranteed that Google will ditch the competitors website. Also, it has to be done using an authority website with a good amount of PR, or a fresh link on an authority site that has a page with high temporary PR higher than your pages PR. The big problem with this is that the 302's url will initially be listed high, (yours disappearing), but when the temporary high PR effect on Google wears off, the 302 url's page with your content will also rank lower and your will continue to not rank at all.

I have seen this effect with links from directory sites that use 302 redirects in link counter scripts.

Since Google seems to sandbox new websites, creating a new website with a view to placing a redirect to a competitors website will probably get you no-where since Google probably won't list your pages for competitive terms for some time, therefore little chance of your page outdoing the competitor.

Why multiple url's

As has been mentioned, don't have the same content on each - decide on which one you want to be the "real" one, and do a permanent 301 redirect.

Multiples are great branding/for limiting competition for your search phrases - people could be very easily confused as to whose was whose if both ranked high.

Also great for mispellings of type in's

[DrEvyl]

We have several domain names that point to the main site.... this originally came to be because we were born out of a split from another site... when we all left, that other site forbade people from mentioning our domain name...

So people started coming up with creative ways to mention our site on that board to let people know where we all went. We picked up on this, and everytime someone mentioned our URL cryptically... we bought that domain, registered it, and pointed it towards the main site.. so if someone clicked on it they would really get to the site.

My favorite of them was http://www.youknowwhatgoeshere.com

[Bryan]

Quote:

My favorite of them was http://www.youknowwhatgoeshere.com

Too funny!

[dune]

When we change our site name and url in March to support introduction of the second generation IS, we will have four domains pointing to our site. I am concerned what will happen to the main url which ranks very highly...

[T2DMan]

Hi Dune

When changing domains - be very sure about what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve. Remember that Google will probably not rank your new url's pages well for 6+ months, so if you depend on Google for a majority of your traffic... It is a real gamble!

Option 1 - 301 redirects from old to new

• You existing website will have heaps of links to it, good PR, well regarded by Google ie ranking well for its search terms for each page. You risk losing this advantage when you move to a new domain.
• If you do 301 permanent redirects from each existing url (htaccess or hard coded into each page), you will get all the PR and link text value through to the new pages. Just make sure that the page titles and onpage seo for the new pages is basically the same, so the link text value is kept valid.
• You will still risk Google treating the new domain as "New" and not being ranked for those search terms, but you stand a chance of Google seeing the redirects and saying your new site is in fact a carryover from the old.
• Contact all people who are linking to you to change their links to the new domain.

Option 2 - keep old

• Make sure that there is no more than one link from old to new (or Google will treat them as "one site" and only list one for each search term)
• If you want more than one link, make all links apart from one to equal rel=nofollow
• When your new website is ranking well for each search term, then use htaccess or redirects hard coded into each old page, to 301 permanent redirect to the new website as per option one.
• Work hard at getting new links to the new website.
• Don't touch existing links to the old website, as you want to be at least found, and if you remove the links traffic may totally drop
• Once your new website is ranking well, then get the old links to be changed to your new website.

As I said, a real gamble either way and you have to really know exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Just make sure that the technology of your new website allows Google to rank each page well. I have come across too many CMS systems that have the same problems as VBulletin - many url's for each page of content, inefficient transfer of PR around the website, titles meta descriptions and meta keywords being the same or not featuring the key phrase, and first words of the text not mentioning the key phrase...

[dune]

My intention was to essentially leave the existing website as it is - the new url will simply be an additional link to the same website, but the only one we "publish" in the future.

Are you referring to how if you access the site via newdomain.com and the webserver redirects you to olddomain.com (and that's what ends up in your address bar)? I have the new domain working already and accessing the site via newdomain.com, leaves newdomain.com in the address bar. It is the current existing site, no different than what you see when you use olddomain.com

Crap, forgot I have to get a new SSL cert...