Reader question: If I have my web site www.depression-therapist.co.uk and then got another, such as www.depression-therapist.com or www.depression-anxiety.com would I be in effect causing search engines to think I am spamming, if both sites have the identical written content? Will they take one or both of my sites off their search engines? Or will I have to make BOTH sites different? I would be grateful for any thoughts on this.
Answer: I get this question all of the time, because I understand that many companies purchase multiple domain names for legitimate reasons.
Legitimate reasons for purchasing multiple domain names
For example, using a fictional tea company, the Web site owner might purchase TranquiliteasOrganicTea.com and TranquiliteasOrganicTeas.com in the event that his target audience might type in a company name directly into a browser. I have seen this situation happen many times, when people do not hear customer service representatives pronounce the “s” in a domain name and type in the singular version of a domain, not the plural version.
Furthermore, purchasing multiple domain names will prevent your competitors from purchasing your company name and variations of your company name. Sometimes companies will purchase hundreds of domain names for this reason. So for the TranquiliTeas site, the Web site owner might purchase:
Tranquiliteas-OrganicTeas.com
TranquiliteasOrganic-Teas.com
Tranquiliteas-OrganicTeas.com
TranquiliteaOrganicTeas.com
Tranquilitea-OrganicTeas.com
TranquiliteaOrganic-Teas.com
Tranquilitea-Organic-Teas.com
Tranquiliteas-OrganicTea.com
TranquiliteasOrganic-Tea.com
Tranquiliteas-Organic-Tea.com
TranquiliteaOrganicTea.com
Tranquilitea-OrganicTea.com
TranquiliteaOrganic-Tea.com
Tranquilitea-Organic-Tea.com
Another strategy I have seen is to purchase commonly used words in a domain (e.g. leatherjackets.com and leatherjacket.com) so that competitors are unable to use these domains as well.
The reason Web site owners purchase multiple domains is not to spam the search engines but rather to: (1) protect their company’s brand, and (2) to prevent their competitors from purchasing strategic domains.
Promote a single domain in the search engines and directories
If you are in a situation where you feel you must purchase multiple domain names, you must decide which domain name you are going to promote in the search engines and the directories (human-based search engines). In all likelihood, the domain name you select is going to be the one you place on your business cards and stationery.
By promoting a single domain name, you are keeping branding consistent both off- and online.
To keep the search engines from reading duplicate content on multiple domains, always place a 301 redirect on the domains that you do not wish to promote in the search engines. For those of you who use shared hosting services, hosting companies commonly refer to this “domain plus” or some other kind of marketing name.
How search engines treat duplicate content
All of the major search engines consider spam to be pages created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results. A large part of the spam definition is the Web site owner’s intent.
Since search engine spiders have no way of determining a person’s intent, one way they eliminate spam is by using duplicate, or “dupe”, filters to eliminate redundant content. In an ideal situation, a search engine spider might detect duplicate content and eliminate one of the domain names from the index. Most likely, the domain that is eliminated is the domain that has the most amount of links pointing to it. In other words, the domain that has the most popularity will be featured in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you promote a single domain on the directories (Yahoo, Open Directory, Business.com, etc.), it is quite simple for the search engines to determine the more popular domain. The 301 redirect easily addresses this issue, too.
However, if you have affiliates who reproduce your content, you can run into problems. The last thing any company needs is having an affiliate consistently receive higher traffic.
A good rule of thumb I use is directory structure. Using Yahoo as an example, if your content would appear in the same category branch in a directory, then the content is probably more likely to be construed as spam. For example, I have a client who specializes in three different industries: ornamental metals, laser cutting, and concrete. When I researched all of the major directories, I found that the categories were completely different. A company shopping for concrete is not likely to be shopping for ornamental brass fixtures. So it was safe to have three domains, three completely different web sites.
However, when I was working with a company that created two different web sites, one for job seekers (potential employees) and one for potential employers, the directories did not have clearly unique category branches. For that reason, I recommended that the client combine both sites into a single site and promote that on the directories. Unfortunately, this particular client did not listen to my recommendations, and his sites received spam penalties from both search engines and directories.
Possible spam penalties
Of course, the system is not perfect, and some duplicate content slips through. I have seen many instances where the same company with two domains, containing identical or similar content, appear in search results.
Do not use this slippage as a reason for producing duplicate or near-duplicate content. Eventually, search engine spiders do discover the duplicate content. An instantaneous, knee-jerk reaction is not a good marketing strategy. All Web site owners should be seeking long-term results. Duplicate or near-duplicate content does not generate long-term results.
If you or your company does decide to have multiple domains with similar content, please keep in mind that your competitors will figure out your strategy. Then, they might turn your site in for spam or try to “one up” you on the near-duplicate content. Personally, I don’t think this is a good use of your time to go the “similar content” route.
I also speak from extensive experience. One of the many duties I perform is to assist companies in getting unbanned or unpenalized in the search engines. In the majority of these situations, my clients have gone the multiple domain route.
Imagine this situation. Your sites suddenly disappear from Google, which is the number one referring URL for your site. You try and contact a software engineer both by email and by phone. You even try to go through your ad representative to get some answers. As you are trying to get a hold of a software engineer, your site is losing customers and sales. It is not a pleasant situation to be in.
Unfortunately, I deal with this situation all of the time, and I empathize with my clients who have hired unethical or ignorant search engine marketers. To solve this problem, we had to place 301 redirects on all but one domain and undergo a considerable link modification campaign. Had my clients never gone the multiple domain route in the first place, they would have saved considerable time and expense.
Conclusion
Ultimately, if you are going to have multiple domains and wish to promote more than one on the search engines, make sure the content is unique on each of them. If you must purchase multiple domains for competitive and branding reasons, make sure you only promote one of them on the search engines and directories. Using 301 redirects is the most effective way to communicate to the search engines that you are not trying to intentionally deliver duplicate content.
Shari Thurow is Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc., a full-service search engine marketing, web and graphic design firm. This article is excerpted from her book, Search Engine Visibility (http://www.searchenginesbook.com) published in January 2003 by New Riders Publishing Co. Shari can be reached at shari@grantasticdesigns.com.
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