3 replies to this topic

[SiennaB]

Hi Folks!
I am new to this forum with some questions that I hope you can help me with. First let me say that the domains I am mentioning are not my actual domains to protect my privacy. I have a well-SEO'ed e-commerce art-related website that is about 7 months online and ranking very well for several of my target keywords. I have 3 domains pointing to my main domain. My main domain features my full business name (siennasartstudio.com). I have owned this domain since 2003. The three domains that I have pointing to this domain are: one that features my full name (siennabrown.com -- owned since 2003), one that features the old name I was using for my business (www.sienna-studios.com -- owned since 2002) and one that is a keyword rich domain highlighting a type of product I sell (lighthousesculptures.com -- owned since 2008).

I thought having these pointing domains would help my rankings. All four are getting indexed by the search engines. But I have recently found out that pointing domains instead of doing 301 redirects can penalize your main site for duplicate content. I am getting conflicting information. What is the truth?

1 - Is having pointing domains really a bad thing or can it potentially be a good thing?
2 - Does the age of pointing domains help rankings any for the main domain? For instance, one of my pointing domains I've owned since 2002, a year before I owned the main domain the I use for my website.
2 -Does a pointing domain that includes keywords (lighthousesculptures.com) help rankings for my site?
3 - Would pointing domains with alternate extentions (.org, .net) for my primary domain help my rankings?
4 - Is it true that domains with .org extentions tend to rank higher than .com or .net?
5 - If I have my programmer make 301 redirects for all my pointing domains, the domains won't even show up in search engines, right? If I want, say, lighthousesculptures.com to show up in search engines, but not be a pointing domain, I'd have to have it hosted somewhere and then just link it to my main domain, right?

Sorry this is so long. I hope you can help me!
Sienna

[Jill]

I thought having these pointing domains would help my rankings. All four are getting indexed by the search engines. But I have recently found out that pointing domains instead of doing 301 redirects can penalize your main site for duplicate content. I am getting conflicting information. What is the truth?

There's no such thing as a duplicate content penalty, but you will find that the additional domains are filtered out of the results usually.

Basically, you've been duped and/or have read old/bad info. There's no advantage to having multiple domains all pointing to the same site, whether parked or 301-redirected. Set up your redirects and go on about your business would be my advice.

[SiennaB]

There's no such thing as a duplicate content penalty, but you will find that the additional domains are filtered out of the results usually.

Basically, you've been duped and/or have read old/bad info. There's no advantage to having multiple domains all pointing to the same site, whether parked or 301-redirected. Set up your redirects and go on about your business would be my advice.

Thank you so much for your reply! One more question. I have heard that if you have an American site but you want more customers from other countries, like from Canada, you should buy a domain name from that country (siennasartstudio.ca), have it hosted in that country and then have it link to your American site. Is that true?

[Jill]

Please see our pinned thread in the International SEM Issues Forum for info on that last question.