One Website - Multiple Urls?

[endure]

Is it possible to have a website/blog pointed at by multiple URLs? For example could I have www.abc.com and www.def.com both pointing at the same host content? If so, how would I go about it?

[halljimbo]

Easy!

URL redirection.

Check the subject out on Wikipedia as a starting point.

[mallorca284673]

From the company you bought your domain, "Log into your domain name" look for web diversion / mirroring, here it will give you the opportunity to enter a URL of the site you want it to go too.

[Gigabyte]

By using URL redirection, people typing in www.def.com (as per your example) will be automatically redirected to www.abc.com and they will see www.abc.com in their address bar (and might be wondering why they ended up there when it's not where they wanted to go). If you want to make it so that the users will only get the content of www.abc.com while displaying the URL www.def.com in the address bar, as the users entered it, it can be done more or less easily, depending on the extras offered by your host provider and your own skills.

If your host cannot support this directly as an extra service or via their technical support then Google is your friend and you can certainly find code examples depending on which platform/host your host is using (would be typically Linux as the hosting packages are always cheaper than Windows, but with more or less access rights). Sorry that I can't help more, I went through this a few years ago and managed to make it work, but it's long time ago and I can't remember all the details.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Gigabyte

[CharlieH]

I believe the correct term is "domain forwarding" atleast that is what it is called with my host (Yahoo)

You can have people forwarded to another domain for content but the original name stays in the URL window.

Edited September 13, 2010 by CharlieH

[kuffki]

Yes as many have said, but highly NOT advisable.

Google is very tough about this and will penalize heavily.

[innerspace]

Yes as many have said, but highly NOT advisable.

Google is very tough about this and will penalize heavily.

Yes easily done but not advisable.

Google "SEO duplicate content" and you will see millions of articles saying why its a bad idea.

If you do decide to do it, make sure you use permanent 301 redirects, which are less likely to give a penalty but will mean that the secondary domain will never get found in search engines.

[endure]

Thanks for all the info.

[george]

You can certainly do domain forwarding but be sure to do a 301 redirect.

[siamect]

I might be wrong here but, I doubt that you get "heavily penalized" for pointing two urls to the same server... It is duplication and most of the search engines will filter one of them out, that's fair.

And I don't really think that any 301 redirect is that much better than to just point both urls the the same server either. I mean 301 redirects are not exactly rocket science... any search engine should be able to figure that out...

What I think will cause a problem is if you try to point a domain name to a website that does not represent what the domain name stand for... Ex If you take a domain name like donald-duck.net if you own it, and point it to a your exciting pornographic web site....

I also think that you will get in trouble if you have an excessive amount of domains... 10 or more... pointing to the same... but for two.... I doubt it...

Larger commercial websites are usually pointed to by a multiple domain names...

Martin

Edited September 13, 2010 by siamect

[Peterbigeyes]

Some famous brands do that. I have an example here. Type http://www.wiglingtonandwenks.com and then try http://www.wiglington.com. Both URLs bring you to the same site,

[innerspace]

And I don't really think that any 301 redirect is that much better than to just point both urls the the same server either. I mean 301 redirects are not exactly rocket science... any search engine should be able to figure that out...

Larger commercial websites are usually pointed to by a multiple domain names...

From an SEO perspective there is a big difference between multiple sites providing the same content and 301 redirects.

Imagine you have site1.com and site2.com, both with page.html

With multiple, identical sites both site1.com/page.html and site2.com/page.html are valid addresses with identical content and as such receive a duplicate content penalty.Normally google will only penalise one of the sites (the newer one) but google dislikes duplicate content and may penalise both.Doing this you have no control over how google treats your duplicate content and you may find your primary site is penalised.

With 301 redirects, if you type site2.com/page.html your browser will be redirected to site1.com/page.html, the address bar will be updated to site1.com/page.html and any bookmarks will be updated.This tells search engines that site1.com is the primary website, no duplicate content exists, just a different path to access the site.Major corporations will almost always use this method.

The only exception to this is when you have multiple TLD's (top level domains) eg. site1.com and site1.co.uk pointing to the same content.This is common for brand protection and is acceptable by search engines.

Another key thing to take into account is trying to use keywords in your domain.If your company is called joe bloggs manufacturing and you make chocolate teapots you will do much better with chocolateteapots.com than joebloggsmanufacturing.comKeyword orientated domain names are the single most effective way to ensure a successful website, without spending a fortune on advertising.

Some famous brands do that. I have an example here. Type http://www.wiglingtonandwenks.com and then try http://www.wiglington.com. Both URLs bring you to the same site,

No. They bring you to the same company but completely different sites. This is another story altogether using multiple landing sites.

[siamect]

From an SEO perspective there is a big difference between multiple sites providing the same content and 301 redirects. Imagine you have site1.com and site2.com, both with page.html With multiple, identical sites both site1.com/page.html and site2.com/page.html are valid addresses with identical content and as such receive a duplicate content penalty.Normally google will only penalize one of the sites (the newer one) but google dislikes duplicate content and may penalize both.Doing this you have no control over how google treats your duplicate content and you may find your primary site is penalized. With 301 redirects, if you type site2.com/page.html your browser will be redirected to site1.com/page.html, the address bar will be updated to site1.com/page.html and any bookmarks will be updated.This tells search engines that site1.com is the primary website, no duplicate content exists, just a different path to access the site.Major corporations will almost always use this method.

I don't see any big difference at all... 301 redir is intended to be used if you want to move the page.

It is not really intended to tell search engines anything... most search engines will simply drop the first URL from the index and you are left with the later URL in the index of the search engine.

If you do it any other way the site will be treated as duplicate content and one of them will be dropped... same result.

If you do it in an abusive way they will penalize you regardless of if you do the abusing using 301 or meta refresh (which also tells the browser to go to the other url) or by just pointing the dns record to the same place.

I believe that what we see as the fast lane to increase our scores is something that Google's people have been dealing successfully with for ages already. I think most of those strategies are just a waste of time and that relevant content and frequent updates and advertising is more likely to pay off... and besides there is absolutely no reason to waste peoples time by showing them a crappy page. People learn and they avoid...

Does anyone click on alibaba any more?

Martin

Edited September 14, 2010 by siamect

[innerspace]

I don't see any big difference at all... 301 redir is intended to be used if you want to move the page.

It is not really intended to tell search engines anything... most search engines will simply drop the first URL from the index and you are left with the later URL in the index of the search engine.

If you do it any other way the site will be treated as duplicate content and one of them will be dropped... same result.

With a 301 redirect google will ONLY index the primary domain without the redirect, meaning no duplicate content in their database.

Without a 301 google will index both sites.

If a single page is duplicated elsewhere google will generally give priority to the oldest page and strip the copy out of the search results.

If an entire site is duplicated, page for page then one of the sites will receive a major penalty and maybe a blacklisting for no original content. The other site may receive a minor penalty for having multiple sites.

Not only are both sites at risk, you also can't choose which site gets dropped from search results.

Here is googles policy on duplicate content.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359

In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results.

I completely agree that quality original content is the key to a great website but if you don't get the basics right you are fighting a losing battle in a competitive industry.