2 Domains, 1 Website

 Anonymous said:
Hi Jill,

What if Patrick's domains had unique content with some cross linking between the two?

Thad

 Jill said:
Hi Patrick,

You mean what if he had 2 completely different websites? (Rather than 1 website with two domains.)

Certainly nothing wrong with that assuming they're providing different information. And certainly nothing wrong with cross-linking them where it makes sense to do so either.

It's completely normal and natural for companies to have more than one website for various reasons.

Now, if you're talking about two websites that are basically the same, but with just minor changes, that's not a very good idea, nor is it necessary. One should suffice (which is what the search engines would believe as well).

Jill

 Hetal Patel said:
I have a site and has 18 subdomains, obvious subdomains point to the same ip address.
I list the products on based on category and categories assigned to the subdomains
Some of the category assigne more then 2 subdomains.

So product listing of that category is duplicate when u go through category..of subdomain.
like
http://1.mysite.com
http://2.mysite.com

some of the Categories of this two subdomain is same,
So my question is that does google consider Product pages of the same category spam or google will index. or any other impact.

If anyone can answer
Thank You
Hetal Patel

 Wyn Snow said:
Is there a way to do a 301 redirect without having hosting for a domain?

I have several clients with more than one domain name, and the secondary/other domains are forwarded to the main domain through the registrar (Bulk Register). I've been told that this is exactly the situation that can create an SEO problem of duplicate indexed content.

Thanks!

 Jill said:
@Hetal Patel

Google won't see it as spam, but it IS duplicate content so it may not all get indexed, or some of it may not be found in the main search results.

@Wyn Snow

There are ways to redirect via the .htaccess file, but it does depend on what sort of access they have. Take a look at our 301-redirect forum at the High Rankings Forum. There's more info there and also some techie gurus who can explain exactly how to do it if necessary.

 Shawn said:
When I set up my 301, the 301 only redirect the people who land on my index page right? what if people land on my deeper page? let say namehere.com/secondlayer.htm, will the 301 redirect those people to the other domain as well?

Thanks.

 Jill said:
@Shawn, it depends on how you set it up. The typical .htaccess 301 redirect will redirect every page on your old site to its equivalent counter-part on the new site.

For anyone who wants more info on using redirects, please visit the High Rankings 301-redirect forum.

 Paul Friedman said:
Are there penalties in the case of two unique domains with one or two meaningful cross links on the same site? The Main domain is hosted and the second domain resides on a subdirectory of the main domain. The hosting service permits this even proving php code for redirecting the second domain

 Jill said:
You can meaningfully link however you want without penalties. The key is "meaningful."

 Denny said:
Perfect timing Jill!
I have a long url domain to my main site and have found a short memorable domain I want to use to lead to the same content on the main site.

Reading the posts, it seems doing a 301 redirect is all it takes. Is that right? The secondary domain will be used only for "remembering" mostly from my blog (with nearly identical domain) to the site

 Jill said:
@Denny

Generally, that's all it takes but sometimes Google's aging delay throws a monkey wrench into the works. If your current domain has built up a lot of trust and authority, then the redirect to a new domain should most likely go smoothly.

But it sounds like you're keeping the main domain and just redirecting the new, shorter one, is that right? If that's the case, you'll be fine, yes.

 SpostareDuro said:
just wanted to thank you for that answer. i had recently wondered the same thing.

 Jill said:
@SpotareDuro You're welcome!

 Hetal Patel said:
Thanks Jil

That's what I am thinking some of the pages has been indexed and some of not.

 Denny said:
Thanks Jill,
Yes the new "short" domain is just sooo memorable, wheras the original site domain is long, but being full of keywords that match the site name, it works very well in Googles eyes even though it has been up for a month a #5 and a #18 for the main two very competitive keywords!

Anyway, the new short site will contain no content, just re-direct to the original. So aging shouldn't be a problem should it?

Should I just have my host, host them both on the same account IP then with a permenant 301 re-direct?

 Jill said:
Denny, the aging delay doesn't matter for the new, short domain because you're just going to redirect it anyway.

So yes, just have your host 301 redirect the short one to the long one and you'll be fine.

 Mahmoud said:
Hello there,
If I have two sites A.com and B.com, both has good ranking and many pages indexed 10th of thousands indexed pages.
If I made a subdomain from A.com (subdomain.A.com) that points to B.com, how can I do it, safely without loosing any of B.com indexed pages or ranking? what's the safest scenario for SEO?

 High Rankings Forum said:
Hi Mahmoud,

There's not enough info in your question to provide you with a sufficient answer. Please head over to the High Rankings Forum and post there for help with this.

Jill

 Mahmoud said:
hey Jill thanks,
Well I tried but I cant make a new topic since i'm a new user.
my question is that I have two old websites .. both has a good number of indexed pages and good ranking but there is one bigger than the other. I want to make a subdomain on the big site, that redirects to the other smaller site.
how can I do it safely, is using 301 will do?? can I redirect subdomains to other domains? thanks

 Jill said:
Yes you can. I don't really get why you would want to, but you can pretty much redirect anything to anything else.

 Mahmoud said:
thanks for replying and I know that I can, bu my question is that it wont affect my SER? or indexed pages? how can I manage to make only the old site to be indexed, and I need to do that cause I'm gathering all my websites under one domain but at the same time I don't wanna loose the old sites domain and popularity.

 Jill said:
301-redirecting the old to the new should do the trick, but there could be some time in between for the reindexing and 301s to take effect with the engines. They don't always pass the link popularity righ taway.

 Julz said:
I have one main domain indexed with Google and I have three domains using rediret 301 to the same site, how do I get the three domains on 301 recognised on search engines if I can't index them on Google because of the duplicate content problem?

 Jill said:
Julz, the idea of using the 301 redirect is so that the additional domains DON'T get indexed. If you want them indexed, then remove the 301's and make them completely unique.

 dobbel said:
Timely topic; as I am unexperienced in SEO etc and am dealing with this very issue and still haven't found the better solution for the pickle I am in.

Btw. I have registered on the forum this morning, but am not getting the confirmation email. Not in unwanted messages either. Tried confirm again. Nothing.

I am working on a site for a friend with a personal domain for her small business site (#1 in google via her name) site is static html on a host without option to 301 or htaccess.

Decision is made to go to better host, supporting dynamic sites to have a nicer site and more options.

Now there is a second domain name as a business also. Main purpose is to secure the name and allowing the email of a business newsletter to be separate from direct client email.

I thought it would be OK both domain names point to the same website. My bad or not?

The new site is designed and up at the new host, can be reached via the new business domain name (DNS)>

But, now that I am thinking about redirecting the older domain name ... I am worried about search engine ranking etc for the personal domain name.

Questions ...

Q) Is it OK to have one domain name point to the server via DNS and have the other via domain forwarding?

Q) Would it be better if the existing personal domain name is the one hosted via DNS ... and the new business name forwards?

I'm thinking the latter would be better for search engines. Right?

Unless there are other things to consider and better options out there.

Hoping your insight can help guide me.

My thought right now is, that I should, create a new site at the new host, so it can be found via DNS (registrar into webserver requires the same domain name on the root of the server). Once that's done have DNS propagate the personal domain from old location to new.
Which should secure the page ranking & search results? Right?

Then put refresh pages up for the old static hosted HTML pages, in case those show up somewhere or there is an old bookmark.

Then after that do a 301 on the new host from the business domain name folder.
Then consider domain forwarding via registrar for the business name to the personal domain.

Am I still making sense?

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,
FD

 Jill said:
FD, imo, it doesn't matter which domain you use, but I would recommend 301-redirecting one to the other, one way or another.

That's really all that matters.

 Dobbel said:
Thanks, Jill, for the fast response.

I think I'll just recreate the site, so that the personal domain points to the new site via DNS. I think my friend will like that better. Then 301 the business site domain name, as that one hasn't had any traffic anyhow.

Just to play it safer with her original google ranking.

The issue still is I can't 301 from the old old host.

Is it safe to use a refresh with 0? For major search engines?

Thanks again,
FD

 Jill said:
The only safe redirect is via a 301, not a meta refresh.

 JayJay said:
i have my main domain that i have had for 3 years. it is a real estate site. the site has a page on it that has a map where you can start searching properties. what i wanted to do is have several domain names (around 20) land on that same page. ie www.area1condo.com, www.area2condo.com, www.area3condo.com, ect. All the new domains would land on the same mapping page on my main site. Can I do this with out Google penalizing me for it?

 Jill Whalen said:
JayJay, sure you can do it, just redirect via 301 them all to the one you want.

There's no SEO benefit to it, however. You should probably ask this in the High Rankings Forum (or do a search there as I'm sure we've covered the topic many times).

Click the link in my name to get there quickly!

 John said:
Is this a bad thing then . I have 2 websites. My main one and another wenbsite that only displays my homepage. Should i do this or not. Please help

Many thanks and kind regards

 Jill said:
John, as the post states, it's typically not going to be helpful for you. I'd go with the 301-redirect and leave it at that.

 quiche said:
Thanks for the clearification... different domains with different content seems to be the best solution therefore.

 Anonymous said:
Okay so I have one website and two domain names. The first domain name does not rank me very well in google cause of its name. Now I used on the second domain name a better choice of words for searching. I added it to google. Do you guys think that it will work for me? I noticed that it works for many people if in you domain name you use the the key words that you can be found easily.

 Jill Whalen said:
It's doubtful it will help. The reason your first domain isn't doing well is highly unlikely due to its domain name.