Domain forwarding

[Eagle]

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Is there an SEO penalty for forwarding sites to a different URL (main website)? I have my domain's .com mirrored but was just wondering whether there was any value in using forwarding from other URLs I own?...

:)

[TechFox]

Most domain providers will provide domain forwarding for free.

[Eagle]

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Thanks, but is there any penalty with SEO?

[APRogers]

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Thanks, but is there any penalty with SEO?
I think that depends on where the other domains are administered from.

I use 1&1 as my hosting provider and I have several domains all pointing at the same web site. The statistics analyse separately who calls which page via which domain because they all sit on the same server.

If they sat on differing servers, it could skew your referal statistics, because you're refering to yourself but you wouldn't be able to do it any other way without transferring the domains all to one provider.

Alan

[Eagle]

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Thanks Alan

I think I understood that! :D

So, no search engine/page rank penalty - just a fudge on my referal statistics?

[APRogers]

So, no search engine/page rank penalty - just a fudge on my referal statistics?In short, yes - I believe that's all you'll suffer.

Alan

[epiphany]

There are different types of redirecting, some affect PR and some don't.

Read this (http://www.accordmarketing.com/tid/archive/301-redirects-seo.html) article for a bit more information :)

There is also the issue of duplicate content on these site, I don't know if that is the case but if it is then you will be adversely affecting your SEO rating.

[Eagle]

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:shock:

So that seems to be saying that redirecting my .com domain to the .co.uk domain (via my registrar CP) is incurring a penalty...? Hmm. :( Should I stop the forwarding though and risk losing people who accidentally type .com?

Best read that tomorrow again (head spinning!)

Thanks though. :)

[DuaneJackson]

Redirecting it wont give you a penalty. To be totally sure, make sure you use a 301 (permanent) redirect, not a 302 (temporary). You are currently using a 302 as you can see here: http://www.keyone.co.uk/tools-source-viewer.asp?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eagleimagery.com%2F

What *could* give you a penalty is if you are mirroring the sites across multiple domains. ie, the same content is at the .com and .co.uk.

If you already have people linking to you at the .com or the .com has already been indexed then the best thing to do to ensure you don't lose any visitors is to use an intellignet redirect. So that if someone requests www.domain.com/pagex.htm they get 301'd to www.domain.co.uk/pagex.htm

Hope that helps.

[TechFox]

It depends on your domain registrar. I use NamesCo and they allow URL forwarding with SEO