SEO Frequently Asked Questions

QUESTION: Posted on 2/25/2005 12:31:53 PM
I've noticed that some companies have more than one web site even though the sites offer the same products or services.  Isn't it better to concentrate my resources on on making one site the best it can be?  Is it ok to have mulitple sites for the same company?

Brad

ANSWER: Posted on 2/25/2005 2:51:00 PM

This was common process used several years ago by many companies to get maximum exposure on the Internet. You are right that now its better to put all your resources into one really good website. The bigger the website the better it is for indexing and stability in the search engines. This is assuming the whole website is indexable by the search engine crawlers. Search engine crawler friendly website are a must to get listed on the search engines properly.

Today this is not effective and in fact often causes problems. Since search engines have very powerful duplicate filters it is now better to avoid pointing additional domains to the same content. If you do have to use multiple domains use a 301 permanent redirect to direct visitors to your main domain and this also tells the search engines that the additional domains are just pointer domains. This will enable you to get your main website indexed better in the search engine which will result in higher rankings overall.