32 replies to this topic

[turbocashuk]

My problem with the 301 redirect is why you want to use it.
I may be wrong, but if you set up another domain which has a permanent redirect to your main domain, the new domain will not be picked up by the search engines. Why? It doesnt have any of the backlinks that your main domain has.
I am having this problem with having a .com website in the UK and want to register a .co.uk redirected to the .com so I will be picked up by yahoo.co.uk etc. However, even if I set up this redirect, the search engines wont rank the .co.uk site as highly as the .com site as it has no backlinks.
Am I correct here?

[compar]

My problem with the 301 redirect is why you want to use it.
I may be wrong, but if you set up another domain which has a permanent redirect to your main domain, the new domain will not be picked up by the search engines. Why? It doesnt have any of the backlinks that your main domain has.
I am having this problem with having a .com website in the UK and want to register a .co.uk redirected to the .com so I will be picked up by yahoo.co.uk etc. However, even if I set up this redirect, the search engines wont rank the .co.uk site as highly as the .com site as it has no backlinks.
Am I correct here?

That is an interesting problem. I take if from what you say the the only way to get into the UK version of Yahoo is with a .co.uk. If that is true but at the same time the .com is valuable then you would definitely want to use both domains.

I would be tempted to duplicate the content and make each domain identical. You would have to work with all your backlink sources and have them put up links to both your pages.

I know that Google will apparently penalize you if they find duplicate content, but I have seen this done by people who are convinced that people find pages via the URLs and I have not seen Google penalize them. I seems to me your case is a the rare exception where people really will find your page dependent upon its URL.

There have been many other threads on this forum that talked about non compliance with Google's TOS and the fact that Google does not in fact appear do anything about non compliance. It's as though Google was saying in a perfect world here is how we think everyone should operate. However we recognize the world is not perfect, therefore we ignore all but the most grievous violations.

[qwerty]

As I understand it, you don't exactly get penalized for having duplicate content out there. It's just that Google won't bother indexing something that's a copy of something else. So if you put out two identical pages, they'll index one and ignore the other, but you don't get to pick which one gets ignored.

In my experience, that's what happened. I had 4 or 5 domains, all of which were "aliases" (as my host called it) of one. Google picked up one page from domain 1 and ignored the others. In a few cases, the content from one of the other domain names got indexed rather than the page from the main site. I don't recall ever seeing two pages with the same name/content but different domains come up in a SERP (except on NorthernLight, which is barely worth mentioning).

[Denyse]

So Q, what happens if someone steals your content - how do they pick which one to show? Could someone conceivably get rating on stolen content while the original goes unpicked?

[qwerty]

Well, I think "identical content" is absolutely identical -- the thief would have to steal all the code from the page in order for the SE to see it as a copy. That would include the names of navigation buttons and other images, I imagine.

If I'm right about that, the thief would have to be extraordinarily lazy and stupid, because by copying everything on the page they're likely to get ignored. It's much more likely they'll steal your content and throw it into their page, I'd say.

[Scottie]

The way it should work is that your site is already out there and indexed before someone copies the content- the duplicate (stolen) work should be ignored.

If you find out that your copy has been copied and ranks well while yours does not, you definitely need to report the copyright infringement to Google.

OTOH, I have seen articles I wrote turn up in searches- they are the same article on different sites. I imagine that the rest of the page is different enough that Google doesn't consider them duplicate. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the threshold for duplicate content is.

I would be tempted to duplicate the content and make each domain identical. You would have to work with all your backlink sources and have them put up links to both your pages.

Good luck with that! I doubt you will find many sites willing to link to the same content twice. What value would that have for them?

[compar]

Good luck with that!  I doubt you will find many sites willing to link to the same content twice.  What value would that have for them?

What kind of selfish attitude is that. I thought linking is all about altruism

But seriously why would they object if they in turn got links back from each of the duplicate sites -- and remember each with it's own domain. And the reason for doing this in the first place is to get listed in Yahoo.uk. So as long as the linking relationship is reciprocal why wouldn't the value that accrues to turbocashuk's page also accrue to anyone who links to it?

[Jill]

So Q, what happens if someone steals your content - how do they pick which one to show?  Could someone conceivably get rating on stolen content while the original goes unpicked?

Yes, I have seen this be a problem. Very often, in Google, they choose the higher PageRanked page to show. If for some reason your thief has a higher PR than you, their site could be listed above yours, with the original content.

That's when you need to contact Google to request them to remove the stolen content asap.

You'll need proof, however.

As to creating a whole other site with the exact content, I would highly recommend NOT doing that. As others have suggested, Google will not show one of the domains. (They will index it, it just won't show in the SERP unless you click on the link that says "some pages have not been shown for this result" or whatever the wording is.)

In theory, the 301 redirect should work fine. That's the suggested method by Google. In practice, it doesn't always work, or can take awhile.

Jill

[compar]

In theory, the 301 redirect should work fine.  That's the suggested method by Google.  In practice, it doesn't always work, or can take awhile. 

Jill,

How does the 301 get him listed in yahoo.uk? Do you think Yahoo is going to review and accept a URL that is redirected to a .com? If they would then why are they demanding a .co.uk in the first place?

[Jill]

It's the other way around, Bob. You redirect the .com to the .co.uk.

Jill

[turbocashuk]

So basically what you do is leave the .com as it is, leave its backlinks as they are, and redirect the .com to the .co.uk, so that when users search on yahoo.com and yahoo.co.uk only turbocashuk.co.uk comes up and not the .com?

Dunno if I want to risk it!

[compar]

So basically what you do is leave the .com as it is, leave its backlinks as they are, and redirect the .com to the .co.uk, so that when users search on yahoo.com and yahoo.co.uk only turbocashuk.co.uk comes up and not the .com?

Dunno if I want to risk it!

No. I think the only way Jill's suggestion can work is to move all the content currently on .com to .co.uk. After all Yahoo.uk won't list your site without content or substance. This will mean that you have to have all your back links modified.

Also I assume that Jill thinks that Google will be just as favourble to your .co.uk domain as they are currently to your .com. So now you have the best of both worlds -- a site in yahoo.uk and a site indexed in Google. The only reason to leave the .com in place is for people who have it bookmarked or for backlinks that may not get changed etc.

So the risk here is that in the transition somewhere Google drops you and then never elevates the .co.uk to the same status as you presently enjoy with your .com. I agree that this would worry me to. But nevertheless it may be the only way to go, if you like some many others, reject duplicate sites.

[turbocashuk]

I get lots of traffic from google.co.uk. That's because they index by ip and not domain. But I am not in yahoo.co.uk at all.

I've anyway just realised that the accounting software we provide can be used worldwide - in fact most of the sales have come from the US. So if I want to market in say the US, Canada, the UK etc the .co.uk wont show up in canada listings. So it doesnt solve the problem really.

In the end the key is to rely on great links and pr for traffic. Search engine traffic should be a bonus. It is after all only 13% of traffic anyway.