Multiple Domains

Last Updated: 24 October 2006


A popular technique used by people to try and increase web site traffic can actually bring in less traffic in the long run.

Through our dealings with small businesses throughout Australia and around the world, we've discovered that a common practice among many of them is to purchase multiple domain names and set up identical or very similar web sites in order to try and maximise their exposure and web site traffic.

For example, someone might buy a bunch of loosely related domain names (eg. www.used-cars.com, www.carsales.com, and www.second-hand-cars.com) and set up either identical or very similar versions of their web sites on all of them. The idea is that the more domains you have out there the more likely it is that people will find you and therefore you will get more traffic.




Unfortunately, in the long run this tactic can in fact bring you much less traffic than having just one quality web site.

The reason is that search engines cottoned on to this practice a long time ago and decided that they didn't like it because it meant that their database could be "spammed" and filled up with identical content and therefore taint the results their users would get.

Therefore, most of the major search engines have set up systems that can easily search the whole world wide web for identical content, and if they find your identical sites then they will usually penalise you or remove you from their database altogether. And they won't even tell you they've done this. You'll just never get shown in any results when people search for your product, and you'll miss out on your share of the billion searches conducted on the Internet every day.

Even very similar content on different sites can trigger some search engines' spam warning systems. If you only alter your content slightly, then you may still be picked up.

Some analysts even suggest that some search engines are so clever that they can tell if you own a number of sites that, although the content is different, link together solely for the purposes of driving traffic to each other and referring visitors to the same place. We have not seen any evidence of this happening and in fact it would seem that any system that tried to screen for that kind of set up would undoubtedly penalise many innocent sites, so we don't think it's likely to happen in the near future.

So what do you do if you've already got multiple domains with the same content? Get rid of them all but one! How you do this will depend on what kind of traffic each site is currently getting. If they don't get a lot of traffic, then just close them. However, if they are getting good traffic, then the best policy is to change the content entirely, or even just set up a page that says "this site is now closed, please click here to go to xxx".


Contact us for further information about this topic.


Disclaimer: This page is designed to provide information only and is not a substitute for advice that is specific to your business. Before acting on any of the information above it is important you seek further advice from a professional who has taken into consideration the nature and circumstances of your business.

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