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When I work with new clients I almost always ask them what other domain names they own. There’s a good reason for this, not just because I’m nosy, but because the way the domain names are used can affect search engine rankings.
I’m finding more and more that many of my clients have their website displayed across multiple domain names, or a variation of their main domain, e.g .com version and the .co.uk version. Owning domain name variations is a good thing as it means that competitors can’t buy them up, so it’s important you do own the main variations of your domain.
However, if you display your site on these multiple domains, it can cause a real headache and here’s why:
1. Search engines don’t like duplicate content – it clutters up their database and they can penalize sites for displaying the same content on other domains.
2. Search engines will index whichever domain they want, so you may find that your preferred domain doesn’t show up in the search results or you get mixed domains in your results.
3. Having variations of your domain means that your branding is inconsistent.
4. Your link popularity gets split, i.e some websites will link to one domain, some websites to other domains. This means that the boost you get from quality links may be spread out, which doesn’t really help with rankings.
If you’ve got various domain names out there with your website on it, the best thing is to choose the domain name you really want to promote and redirect the other domains to it with a 301 redirect (or permanent redirect). That way the search engines will follow the redirect and any links pointing to those domains and filter them through to your main domain. It’ll take a few months for this to filter through fully from all your domain variations, but once it does, you should see an improvement in rankings, particularly if you’ve been struggling to gain higher rankings and can’t work out why.
If you’ve some ideas for a particular niche, you could always use one of your domains for that, but bear in mind that your content needs to be significantly different from your main website for search engines not to give ranking penalties for duplicate content.
About Sam
Sam McArthur is an internet marketing consultant with 12 years in the industry. She helps professional service businesses with their internet marketing strategy, helping them to see significant results from their online marketing activities, particularly within the search engines. She also consults on the latest internet tools, technology and best practice techniques.
