Two domains - same content - bad idea?

Hey guys,

I have www.nzboards.co.nz pointing at www.nzboards.com ... the front page gets rewritten to www.nzboards.com but everything under/forums/ does not (ie: the 2 domains are accessable individually).

Am I totally insane for doing this?

Originally Posted by kall

Am I totally insane for doing this?

I'd say yes

http://www.nzboards.com/forums/jokes-jocularity/osamas-letter-bush-24830/

http://www.nzboards.co.nz/forums/jokes-jocularity/osamas-letter-bush-24830/

This is a no-no!

*sigh*

I wish I wasn't at work .. I NEED to get into my /forums/ .htaccess and add the domain redirection (if HTTP_HOST = nzboards.co.nz - change to nzboards.com.

Would that help?

Yep... I'd recommend setting a redirection like:

Code:

 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.nzboards\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.nzboards.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Yeah, thats what I have in the root .htaccess, as can be seen by trying to access www.nzboards.co.nz

Thanks Juan.. I will be definitely fixing this up when I get home (or when I can figure out how to bore a hole through work's firewall..).

Odd.. I added the .htaccess you advised, and when I tried to go to the .co.nz thread you quoted, it redirected to the forum home. :(

I'm not sure - currently

http://www.nzboards.co.nz/forums/jokes-jocularity/osamas-letter-bush-24830/

is not redirected. Did you remove the redirection?

Make sure that the rewrite rules are *above* other rules within .htaccess.

I did... but its back on now.

Yep, it was right under the Rewrite Engine on.

And its back off now... got to be home to use FTP or even cPanel. :(

Ahh, got it...

Now. Can you advise why its not working? I added the htaccess stuff you mentioned..

Should the RewriteRule ^(.*)$ have a $ at the end of it (second line)? My one in root does not.

I use this in my root .htaccess:

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.fireblades\.org 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.fireblades.org/$1 [R=301,L]

And this in my forums .htaccess:

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.fireblades\.org 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.fireblades.org/forums/$1 [R=301,L]

Keith, I love you, and want to have your babies.

Juan - hire this man.

'$' is optional in this case, it should work in the same way...

I think I'll need ftp access to troubleshoot this one - PM Sent.

Hi!

I don't think duplicate content is that bad if it's not on the same domain. I think that when you have duplicate content on multiple domains, google will just choose the content it likes the best from those 2 offerings meaning that you have 2 chances of getting ranked higher for relevant keywords.

For examle if you have a parrot forum like me, and one domain "parrotforum.com" with a subforum for every parrot e.g. african grey and you would link africangreyforum.com to the african grey subforum you will be able to get ranked one more easy for "african grey forum" then when just using 1 domain parrotforum.com. This is how I am ranked one for every parrot species "forum" and also premium keywords (top 10) for a lot of parrot species exept for african grey wich is ranked 2 but is the biggest forum in users.

So my advice would be to use multiple domains if it would enable you to make your content more relevant to your domain.

Best Regards,
Jan Jaap

I think that when you have duplicate content on multiple domains, google will just choose the content it likes the best from those 2 offerings meaning that you have 2 chances of getting ranked higher for relevant keywords.

you can be wrong here.

If you have a parrotforum.com as mainforum -> you will have difficulty to modify parrotforum.coms archive, unless you decide to turn it off.

If you plan to add another sub-forum to a new domain name for example:
african grey to africangreyforum.com whats the point on adding this to parrotforums.com ?
I would rather prefer to do this on africangreyforum.com.

Having multiple domains you need to get backlinks for each and every domain, the less no. of domains you have your pocket / time allows you to get more backlinks

hope this makes sense ?